Exploring Life in the Past with Year 2/3

By | November 19th, 2016|Educational Activities, Main Page, Teaching|0 Comments

Dinosaurs and Fossils with Year 2/3

For the children in the three classes of Year 2/3 at Pebble Brook Primary School, the autumn term has been dedicated to learning all about prehistoric life.  Over the last eight weeks or so, the dedicated teaching team have introduced a wide range of cross-curricular activities all linked to learning about dinosaurs, prehistoric animals and the Stone Age.

Prehistoric Life

As part of the challenging scheme of work that had been devised, the children were asked to make a dinosaur themed model over the half-term break.  A member of the Everything Dinosaur team visiting the school had the opportunity to view some of the amazing dinosaurs and prehistoric scenes the children had created.

On Display Outside the Year 2/3 Classrooms – Prehistoric Scenes

Dinosaurs on display.

Dinosaur and prehistoric scenes outside the classrooms.

Picture credit: Pebble Brook Primary School/Everything Dinosaur

The collection of prehistoric landscapes and dinosaur dioramas made a very attractive exhibit and several of the children’s models were used in a special assembly following our dinosaur and fossil workshop.  The Year 2/3 children presented some of the fascinating facts that they had learned about dinosaurs to other classes as well as the mums and dads.

A Very Sparkly Dinosaur Created as a Half-term Project

A very sparkly armoured dinosaur.

A very sparkly armoured dinosaur spotted in Year 2/3 AP classroom.

Picture credit: Pebble Brook Primary School/Everything Dinosaur

Fiction and Non-fiction Writing Exercises

The well-appointed classrooms highlighted lots of fiction and non-fiction writing exercises and each of the three classrooms had a special “wow wall” with a wonderful dinosaur and Stone Age people illustration surrounded by lots of topic themed words to help the budding young palaeontologists expand their vocabularies.

Prehistoric theme for a special topic about life in the past.

A colourful dinosaur and cavemen display board.

Picture credit: Pebble Brook Primary School/Everything Dinosaur

For creative, dinosaur themed toys and gifts: Prehistoric Animal Themed Toys and Gifts.

Carnivores, Omnivores and Herbivores

The children were keen to demonstrate their knowledge and they enthusiastically explained the foods that carnivores, omnivores and herbivores ate, all linking nicely into that part of the Year 2 science programme in the English national curriculum that relates to living things and their habitats.  In addition, the Year 3 children enjoyed learning about the properties of fossils, which dove-tails into the lower Key Stage 2 science programme that covers soils, rocks and fossils.

Exploring Life in the Past

Dinosaurs and cavemen.

A dinosaur and cavemen themed display board.

Picture credit: Pebble Brook Primary School/Everything Dinosaur

Measuring Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Life

All three classes would be getting to grips with the use of rulers for measuring in the very near future, the extension activity we provided which involves measuring and comparing the footprints of different dinosaurs should work well with the teaching team’s lesson plans.  The dinosaur coprolite certainly proved to be very popular and it helped reinforce the children’s learning after they had examined some “dinosaur poo” in a previous classroom activity.

Mini “Jurassic Worlds” on Display

Colourful dinosaur scenes.

Several prehistoric scenes on display outside the classroom.

Picture credit: Pebble Brook Primary School/Everything Dinosaur

Everything Dinosaur and a Dinosaur Workshop

All too soon, it was time to leave the enthusiastic pupils and their dedicated teachers.  However, we did set the children a special challenge.  As they had lots of questions and since we were unable to address them all during the day, it was suggested that the children could write into our office or email us and we would do our best to provide them with answers.  This provided yet another non-fiction writing activity for the children to undertake, as well as giving the teachers the opportunity to explore the differences between writing a letter and sending an email with their pupils.

Take a tour of the Everything Dinosaur website: Tour Our Website (Everything Dinosaur).