Dinosaur Discovery

Dinosaurs and Playdough

This year quite a few children displayed an interest in dinosaurs. One JK boy in particular his parents had said on the first day of school that he loves anything with sharp teeth such as sharks and dinosaurs. I hadn't planned on bringing out the bin of dinosaurs we had hidden away in our cupboards but when this boy was hesitant to come into the classroom on his first day, I brought them out. He was instantly drawn to them and went right into the classroom to play. I added the dinosaurs to our" chicka-chicka boom boom" sensory bin, that then became our "dinosaur" bin.

Discovering Dinosaurs
After seeing how much the students enjoyed playing with our toy dinosaurs I displayed books about dinosaurs on our science table and in our reading area. The children learned a lot of facts about different dinosaurs and how some were meat-eaters and others ate plants.

Digging for "Bones"

After reading about paleontologists and what that big fancy word means and what they do, we did a fun activity by becoming paleontologists ourselves! The children each received a chocolate chip cookie and a toothpick so they could dig for "bones" and get the chocolate chips out of cookie.

Digging for Dinosaur Bones

In our sandbox we put small paintbrushes, scrapers, magnifying glasses, stones with dinosaur prints on them, and clay formations with dinosaurs hidden inside. The students could use the paintbrushes to delicately brush off the sand when they found a fossil and use the scrapers to dig for fossils hidden in the clay.

Dinosaurs, playdough, and loose parts.

Dinosaur Eggs

Each morning the children would excitedly come into the room to see if our dinosaur/reptile eggs had hatched. We had also made some predictions about what we thought the eggs would become as not all of the eggs were dinosaurs (we also had a snake inquiry going on). We had guesses such as; lizards, birds, chickens, and even humans!

"Dinosaur Land" made with recycled cardboard, water bottles, tissue paper, paint, shredded paper and rocks.

Dinosaur Imprints in Playdough

Building a dinosaur with fossils on the light table.

Making a Dinosaur Egg experiment

The ECE in the classroom made a dinosaur egg with the whole class. She simply used baking soda, water, and green food colouring to create the egg. She formed the egg around a tiny dinosaur and left it to dry over night. The next day the egg was dry and hard.

Finding the Hidden Dinosaur

The next day after the egg had dried we had the class get together as a whole to make predictions about what will happen when we spray the egg with vinegar. The children first smelt the vinegar to guess what liquid was going to be used. The children were so engaged in this science experiment and were amazed when the egg started to fizzle away to reveal the dinosaur hidden inside!

September Start

Observing Sunflowers

Sunflowers are so beautiful in September so I thought it would be interesting to bring some into the classroom and lay them out on the science table for the children to observe. I wasn't sure what container to put them in as they were so tall. When I simply lied them down on a tray it sparked conversations and a lot of questions from the children about flowers and the importance of water. The children drew the sunflowers as they saw them and then drew what they thought the flowers would look like if they were not put into a vase of water. Their oral predictions about what will happen to the flowers because they were not in water was also recorded.

Watching a Caterpillar

I had bought a pot of fall flowers for a co-worker and noticed a caterpillar on one of the flowers. I picked the flower with the caterpillar and put it in a small container on the morning sign-in table for the children to observe and look closely with the magnifying glasses.

Going on a Nature Walk

We are so lucky to have a lot of trees, grass, and an outdoor classroom with logs to discover on our school yard. The children love going on nature walks and collecting items to bring back into the classroom to observe and use as art materials.

Collecting nature items in brown bags.

The students are choosing which nature items they would like to use for their facial features on their self-portraits.

Creating a Self-portrait
The children would choose their nature items while I would hot glue it on to place for them. Some children were very detailed by adding flowers to their hair and even finding sticks that had a curve to represent a smile.

The letter "S" and Snakes

Our class was learning about the letter "S" this particular week and in one of our songs there is a snake. After we had learned the song together a few of the students were playing at the green flubber made by the ECE in the classroom that was at one of the discovery centres. We watched the children as they moulded their own snakes and then made little balls and putting them in ice cube trays. I asked one of the boys what they were making and he said, "baby snakes." This led to our first inquiry in our classroom! After that we set out some books on snakes at the science and discovery centre. The children were very interested to look at the books and to learn new information about snakes.

Snake Habitat

After reading different texts and watching some informational videos on snakes we learned about what a snake habitat consists of. We decided to create our own snake habitat with real nature items, label what was in the habitat, and place a rubber snake in it.

Playing with our "fake" class pet!