Using Dinosaurs and Fossils to help Educate Nursery to Foundation Stage
Within the United Kingdom, a series of strategic learning goals have been established for all school children from nursery stage through to reception/foundation and beyond to key stages one, two, three and four. These learning goals are incorporated within the National Curriculum and provide assistance and guidelines for teachers and teaching assistants to ensure educational standards are met across the country. Key learning goals are built around concepts such as developing knowledge and understanding of the world, building communication skills, language and listening skills. The use of dinosaurs, dinosaur information, prehistoric animal drawing materials and real fossils of prehistoric animals can make an excellent contribution to the teaching curriculum. In addition, such activities lend themselves to extension and topic work.
The Early Learning Goals - The Link with Dinosaurs
The Early Learning Goals are a fundamental element of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) statutory framework. These establish the expectations and standards of children ages 3-5 years of age in readiness for the move from nursery to the formal reception/foundation stage of Primary education. Some children will exceed the standards that they are expected to attain, other children depending on their own particular learning needs and learning style will be working towards the standards. However, the key aim of these criteria is to establish a broad teaching framework the enables young learners to progress from nursery through to more formal education.
The use of dinosaurs and prehistoric animals can make a contribution to the learning goals and permit teachers and teaching assistants to develop extension activities that permit young children to learn through imaginative and creative play.
For the early years and foundation stage, the key learning outcomes are divided into six specific sections:
Personal, Social and Emotional Development Problem Solving, Reasoning and Numeracy Physical Development Creative Development Communication, Language and Literacy Knowledge and Understanding of the World
Teachers can utilise dinosaurs and prehistoric animals in a variety of ways to ensure that these key learning outcomes are attained. For example, when considering the development of young children's knowledge and understanding of the world, fossils can be used to introduce concepts such as finding out about living and extinct animals and observing similarities and differences between them. Most children have knowledge of dinosaurs and prehistoric animals from children's books, films and television. Dinosaurs have a high media profile and since a new species is named and described every four weeks or so, dinosaurs are frequently featured in newspapers and magazines.
When our qualified teaching staff visit a nursery or reception we work to a formal lesson plan and build our teaching programmes around the key learning objectives. The main benefit of such outreach is that it can kick off a range of extension topics and related activities to help reinforce learning. It is important to maintain the interest of all the class, this can be difficult due to the attention span of children this age. As a result, teaching sessions are limited to around 45 minutes and aim to accommodate a range of learning styles.
Palaeontologists Visiting a Nursery/Reception Class
When a qualified teacher/ palaeontologist visits a class it is important to engage all the children. Working around key themes related to the learning objectives different materials can be used to help young children learn about the similarities and differences of objects, for example between cast fossils, models and real fossils. Children can handle and feel objects and establish that they are warm, cold, soft, hard, heavy, light and such like. This encourages them to use describing words and communicate with others. Crucially, such sessions should be limited to around forty-five minutes to allow effective engagement, but dinosaurs and fossils lend themselves to a range of extension activities such as model making, painting and drawing, drama, story telling, creative play and expression.
Each session would be normally broken down into ten minute teaching blocks, for instance, the first part of the teaching session would involve introductions, overview and explanations. Some of the materials used by palaeontologists such as knee-pads, hard hats can be passed round allowing the children to handle the objects. It is best if the children can form a circle so that the palaeontologist/teacher can stand in the middle of the ring and bring in objects so that all the children can feel that they are part of the lesson.
The second part of the session involves the first handling and passing around of fossils and models. It is best to have some dinosaur toys so that the children can make the link between the model and the fossil of the actual animal. The teacher and teaching assistant can be brought in to help describe and handle objects and supervise object handling. Teeth and casts of meat-eating dinosaurs work effectively and there is normally one child per class that will prove to be very knowledgeable. The lesson can be then be concluded by summarising what objects the children have handled and what they have learned. It is helpful to ask the children what their favourite part of the session was. A quick word with the teaching assistant and staff to discuss extension ideas following the session is always welcome.
Dinosaurs and prehistoric animals do lend themselves to helping engage young learners and provide excellent motivation to help children at the nursery and reception stage gain knowledge and understanding of the world around them. Prehistoric animals and fossils can help with young children's communication and learning skills as well as helping them to use creative and imaginative play to engage with others and develop a knowledge of animals alive and extinct.
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