Dinosaurs and Fossils Encourage Writing
A visit from a fossil expert from Everything Dinosaur can certainly help teaching teams to maintain an interest in hand-writing amongst their charges. Often it can be difficult for the teacher to think of novel and innovative ways to help children expand their vocabularies and to gain more confidence with their written work. A school visitor provides the ideal opportunity for the teacher to set a writing themed activity, composing a thank you letter to the person who came to the school.
A Thank You Letter From Young Dinosaur Fans
Class RJ’s letter. Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur
Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur
To read an earlier article about Everything Dinosaur’s work in schools: Everything Dinosaur’s Teaching in Schools.
Dinosaurs and Fossils
After a visit to the children at Southglade Primary School (Nottinghamshire), the dinosaur expert at Everything Dinosaur, in collaboration with the teachers, set an extension activity. The children were challenged to write a thank you letter and the budding young palaeontologists all rose to the challenge. These types of exercises can prove very beneficial, in addition, with the emphasis on the ICT elements of the curriculum, some of the children could always email a thank you letter to a visitor (so long as permission to do so is obtained first), whilst the remainder of the class can use the more traditional letter writing approach.
Compare and Contrast
This allows the class to compare and contrast the use of email with sending a letter “snail mail”. For example, which missive got the fastest reply?
- What are the benefits of email over sending a letter?
- Why might sending a letter be the better option on some occasions?
Thank you Alex and your classmates for your fantastic letters.
To contact Everything Dinosaur to enquire about our outreach work and our dinosaurs and fossils themed product range: Contact Everything Dinosaur.