Reception Children Expand Their Vocabularies

The children in the Reception class at Micklehurst All Saints Church Primary (Ashton-under-Lyne), have been learning all about dinosaurs this term and they have been taking part in a wide range of dinosaur and fossil themed activities under the expert supervision of the teaching team.

Whilst on a visit to conduct a workshop with the enthusiastic young learners, a team member from Everything Dinosaur was given the opportunity to admire some of the displays in the classroom which highlight the children’s work.

A Colourful Dinosaur Display with Lots of Labels

A colourful dinosaur display with lots of labels.
A colourful dinosaur display with lots of labels. Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

For inspiration dinosaur themed toys and games: Dinosaur Toys and Gifts.

A Dinosaur Display and Engaging Curiosity

One of the key objectives within the statutory framework for the early years foundation stage (EYFS), is to inspire children and to help them develop an enthusiasm for learning.  Dinosaurs inspire children and prehistoric animals such as Tyrannosaurus rex certainly engages their curiosity.  The children were eager to show what they had been doing in class and pointed out the colourful display which included pictures of dinosaurs that they had labelled.

The pupils were keen to demonstrate their knowledge about dinosaurs, even dinosaurs that were omnivores!   A dinosaur themed display dovetails beautifully into the national curriculum, it assists with literacy development and helps to expand vocabularies as well as providing the children with lots of opportunities to express themselves and to explore the properties of materials through creative art.

The dinosaur foot measuring resources we provided linked into the teacher’s scheme of work as the children had been getting used to using measuring cubes and standard units.  We also challenged the class to draw for our dinosaur expert their very own prehistoric animal, as an extension we suggested that the children have a go at measuring their own drawings.  The pronunciation guide we gave the teacher, might come in handy with all those long dinosaur names.

A Dinosaur Den

Part of the classroom had been turned into a dinosaur den.  There were lots of stimulating activities for the children to try, including digging for dinosaur skeletons in sand and lots of books about dinosaurs (fiction and non-fiction), for the children to read.  The dinosaur den was very tidy and well organised.

 A Tidy and Well Organised Dinosaur Den

A dinosaur display in the children's dinosaur den.
A dinosaur display in the children’s dinosaur den. Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

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