Why Would a Dinosaur Not Make a Good Pet?

Around the country lots of teachers are busy organising their next scheme of work in conjunction with the national curriculum.  With the autumn term fast approaching, Everything Dinosaur takes time out to consider one of the term topic themes that has been proposed in support of the science element of the national curriculum in England.  It is important with a subject like science to try and start from a concept that appeals to the child, dinosaurs and fossils tend to be very popular and most teachers find a ready, eager and very enthusiastic audience when prehistoric life is part of the teaching programme.

Studying Dinosaurs Helps to Enthuse Young Learners

Dinosaur toys encourage play.

Children playing with dinosaur and prehistoric animal models.

Picture credit: Schleich

The models in the image are from Schleich.

To view the range of Schleich prehistoric animal figures: Schleich Dinosaur Models.

Foundation Stage Through to Upper Key Stage 2

Learning about life in the past and fossils intersects with the learning programmes of many Year groups within the new curriculum.  For example, Year 3 children have the opportunity to learn about rocks and fossils and Year 6 pupils are challenged to study natural selection, adaptation and evolution.  For younger children, building a term topic with a science theme can start with asking an intriguing question posed from the child’s point of view (the child’s context).  An example of this is the question why would a dinosaur not make a good pet?

Dinosaurs as Pets

Ironically, as birds are technically dinosaurs, many dinosaurs make excellent pets, just ask a pigeon fancier, but that’s not quite the point.  Although we, at Everything Dinosaur do build in the dinosaur/bird link into our workshop activities, feathers and all.  The question can form the basis of a varied and exciting programme of discovery that links nicely across the curriculum.  Many teaching teams use the “learning challenge” method, whereby, a different question related to the term topic is explored each week.  For example:

Term Topic Question – Why Would a Dinosaur not Make a Good Pet?

  • Week 1 question – What is a dinosaur?
  • 2 question – When did dinosaurs live?
  • 3 question – How do we know about dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals?
  • 4 question – What does a palaeontologist do?
  • 5 question – What happened to the dinosaurs?
  • Week 6 summation – Would a dinosaur make a good pet?

Lots of Links to Literacy, Numeracy, History, Geography and Other Curriculum Elements

Lots of dinosaur and prehistoric animal facts on a poster.

Dinosaur facts compiled by Year 1 children.

Dinosaur Fascination

Children are fascinated with dinosaurs.  Learning about dinosaurs can provide a teaching team with lots of lesson plan ideas.  Lesson plans can be tailored to support literacy and numeracy.

To learn more about Everything Dinosaur: About Everything Dinosaur.

With Key Stage 1 children in particular, every opportunity should be taken when it comes to engaging the children and developing literacy and numeracy themes.  However, children whatever their age, if they can be enthused and inspired by a topic then they will quickly pick up and cement life-long learning skills.

Visit the child-friendly Everything Dinosaur website: Everything Dinosaur.