Reception had a very exciting afternoon when Dino Girl from the Travelling History Museum visited us. The children looked the part for our afternoon of dinosaur fun and facts in their fantastic dinosaur costumes and their roars and stomps could be heard throughout the school!
The interactive workshop started with the Diplodocus, focusing on its features and diet, and the ‘stinky belly’ experiment highlighted how the Diplodocus ate stones to aid digestion. Throughout the session, the children learnt about dinosaur defence and they were fascinated by the 1 metre long platelets, that filled with blood to change colour, and tail spikes, the thagomizer, on a Stegosaurus.
Collaboration was key when they all had to work in sync to fly the largest Pterodactyl, the Quetzalcoatlus, with its 12m wing span in our hall. When getting into role as a Tyrannosaurus-Rex, the children could not believe how difficult it was to get up from the floor without the use of their long arms.
Dino Girl did not visit us alone, she brought many model dinosaurs with her for the children to discuss, touch and even ride on. She entertained the children brilliantly by using these to bring her facts to life. She also brought various fossils for us to touch and, unsurprisingly, the Velociraptor claw and the fossilised dinosaur ‘poop’ were the favourites!
To end our wonderful fact-filled afternoon, it was only fitting to think about the end of the dinosaurs. Using a large stone and a big box of flour, Dino Girl re-created the meteorite hitting the earth. Reception loved the countdown and fully grasped the stages that led to the extinction of our greatest ‘land lizards’.
During all this excitement, the children also found time to hunt for fossils in the Dino Dig sand pits and make their own fossils to take home.
Reception fully immersed themselves into this afternoon of wonder and this engaging workshop also inspired our youngest children once back in their classrooms: adventure stories with the dinosaur toys, dinosaur models using wooden blocks and dinosaurs created using paint, pen and Hama beads have certainly kept them busy since Dino Girl’s visit.
What a ROAR-some afternoon had by all!
By Tina Sandall, Reception Form Teacher
