Dinosaurs-r-us!

So Dinosaurs are our project at the mo and the house is filled to the brim with all things dino. I found a scheme of work on the web for KS1 (well grade one in America so I'm assuming near enough the same) It is very american talking about "encountering the idea" and experiencing the idea" *puke* but a good frame work to dip in and out of and the teacher in me loves the structure!!! Our home education is about as autonomous as a control freak like me can manage! So we started a few days after xmyth with T using one of the Dino books he got that was Internet linked. He had a shufie round some of the links and spent a good hour watching mini video clips on the National Geographic website and playing a couple of dinosaur based games included in the Usborne internet linked books.

One of the first tasks on the SOW was to make rice pictures of dinosaurs, cue me cutting out seriously stiff cardboard (which hurts) to make dino templates. The I got little glass jars. half filled them with rice then added a few drops of food colouring and shook them like billio! Then it was just a case of using them like glitter - spread the glue and shake on the rice! Not a bad out come really ! Although it did take an over spray with glue to keep the rice in place.

So idea fully encountered *raises eyebrow* we went on to dinosaur characteristics. We had a few plaggy dinosaurs lying around but defiantly needed more so we borrowed some from B next door. We then split the dinosaurs into groups; Carnivore, herbivore, biped, quadraped etc. I initially asked T to split them into land, air and water until we discovered that dinosaurs only lived on land , the others are prehistoric reptiles!!!! Well even with a total of 13 dinosaurs it was clear we needed more so off we went into town and thanks to the ELC and Natural World sale, came back with 40 mini dinosaurs, 10 dino babies, a braciosaurus and a T-rex as well as a remote controlled T-rex (never ever taking my bro on a shopping trip again) some dinosaur bones to assemble and a dinosaur sticker book, phew!

Now this is where the ex-teacher in me rears its head! AND THUS THE WALL DISPLAY WAS BORN!!!! You have to admit it is pretty impressive! And serves as a constant reminder of our topic!!! Needless to say I bored of cutting out the fiddly little feckers after about five minutes but T loved sorting and sticking his dinos and using the sticker book to add more to the different categories. He even caught me out on a couple of dinosaurs, I assumed one of the mean looking ones was a meat eater but no, apparently just coz it has an evil glint in its eye its not necessarily a carnivore!

We then had a few chats about how many dinosaurs there are around today, ie zero none nada! and how long ago they lived which is a really tough concept to get a wee ones head around. We then talked about why they might had died and what other areas we were going to cover in the project. All in all a good start although I am SICK OF TREADING ON PLASTIC DINOSAURS!!!! they really bloody hurt and are far too spiky IMO!