Our classroom has transformed into a prehistoric landscape over the past month as the preschoolers embarked on a deep dive into the world of dinosaurs. We have worked to develop our learning and knowledge by focusing on how dinosaurs are identified and how they move. By using classification and attribute recognition to match dinosaur figurines to labelled photos, identifying specific physical attributes like neck length, spike location, and arm/leg length. We then shifted our focus to exploring and matching various foot shapes to the correct species. Finally, we incorporated this interest and knowledge into a sensory-art experience where the children dipped dinosaur feet into paint to create tracks and trails, physically seeing the correlations between the 3D foot and the 2D mark it leaves behind.
Not only did these experiences extend and expand the children's interest but shift their play to developing scientific inquiry and classification skills. By identifying and naming attributes of these creatures they built their vocabulary as well as pattern recognition by matching their foot prints.
Even having expanded this interest already, there is so much more for us to learn and discover. Next, we could try exploring what each of these prehistoric creatures eats, where they live, and even what their fossils or bones look like. Using sand and fossils we could bury the ‘skeletons’ in the sand, before using paint brushes and small shovels to have a dinosaur dig and excavation experience to practice fine motor precision required for a real dino dig! We can't wait to see where their curiosity leads us next!
