Some of our children have been showing a keen interest in Dinosaurs so we decided to follow their lead this week and chose "Harry and His bucketful of Dinosaurs" as our book of the week.
We decided to make some dinosaur bones with salt dough. The children measured out the flour salt and water and there was much discussion surrounding measurements and volume. Making the dough was not only a lot of mucky fun but also it encourages strength in the muscles of their hands which in turn will help them later to hold a pen.
We discussed the role of a paleontologist and how they unearth bones and fossils. We looked at some of the dinosaurs that we had on the site, their similarities and differences and discussed what they might have eaten and how we thought they might have behaved. We also had fun with some 'dinosaur eggs' that the children used to become palaeontologists where they had to find the dinosaur buried within the egg. This was a great activity because it allowed the children to see the imprint that was left behind once they finally got to the dinosaur out so it gave them an idea of how fossils were created.
We made some dinosaur pictures using different dinosaur stencils which was a good activity to help teach the children about different shapes, sizes and colours as well as giving them the opportunity to get creative with the glue and paint.
As the children had previously really enjoyed making our group painting for our space themed week, we decided to do another group piece of art. This was a lovely activity as every child got to contribute to the picture, some using handprints to make dinosaurs, others painting the landscape. This also opened up a conversation about volcanoes so going with the children's interests and following their lead, we decided to create a paper mache volcano and used bicarbonate of soda, vinegar, food colouring and liquid soap for them to see a model of how a volcano erupts!