It has been a very prehistoric week in the Den, with dinosaurs being the main focus and topic of conversation, continuing the children’s interest in them from last week. We made a dinosaur (a very rare species with no legs, a massive body, long spiny neck, two little wings and a ribbony tail!) The children loved decorating it with coloured paper and drawings they had made. We gave them only primary coloured paint to provide lots of colour mixing opportunities, and there was great excitement as they magically made purple, orange, brown and green ! Dinosaur decorating involved lots of turn-taking, sharing and communicating too, and the finished dinosaur is truly impressive! We decided she was a female dinosaur, and had name suggestions from parents and children, with “Poppysaurus “ getting the majority vote!
Poppysaurus has been busy this week – she had taken part in several ‘question and answer’ sessions; it has been lovely to watch the children confidently asking her some brilliant questions in a large group activity, and the independent thinking, imaginative ideas and speaking and listening skills used during this. Poppysaurus’ answer to ‘Why did the dinosaurs all die?” was a story involving dinosaurs painting themselves, going out in the rain and drinking water with the washed off paint in it! We now have two alternative theories to consider, as our Book of The Week last week was ‘Dinosaurs Love Underpants’ in which the dinosaurs are wiped out in a great pants tug-of-war. Our aim for the rest of this week is to encourage the children to tell us their own theories!
Yesterday Poppysaurus went out into the garden to practice flying. The children had to really work together and use their strength to hold her up in the air and run her round the garden. Unfortunately she has not yet mastered the art, but if excitement and enthusiasm could make dinosaurs fly, Poppysaurus would be halfway to the moon by now! She told the children on Wednesday morning that she had lost her eggs overnight in the garden, so we went on a Dinosaur Egg hunt, and are currently involved in utiloising our tool skills to open the four eggs we found!!
Poppysaurus has been a fantastic vehicle to explore and extend learning development in so many areas this week. It has been wonderful to watch children feeding her, talking to her and stroking her, and see her through their eyes as a real live dinosaur . I believe a child’s imagination is a little light inside them, growing as it is fed and enhancing every aspect of their experiences, and the more it is fuelled, the longer it will continue to shine.
As for Poppysaurus, watch this space…..
Nin