Dinosaurs

So last summer we had a mini dinosaur theme, as I had mainly older children who love dinosaurs to say the least. Now I had been thinking of adding some more detailed planning too it, to create a full theme with EYFS planning too and now I've got round to it.

I set up our tuff spot with our dinosaurs, wooden blocks, some straw, oats etc for the children to explore and create their own adventure/scenes.

It wasn't long before they rearranged and created some new dinosaur homes.

Having enjoyed Harry and the Bucketful of Dinosaurs, I decided to set up a dinosaur hunt with a difference, as each of the dinosaurs was busy doing something, like reading a book!

Building sandcastles.

Taking a trip on a raft.

Exploring the ball pit.

Climbing trees.

 Bouncing on the trampoline.

Relaxing on a swing.

Deciding whether to try out the slide

                       

and taking notes on the whole exercise!

                           

On another time I hid loads of pictures of different dinosaurs. The children had to find them, then match them up with our toy ones, then try and decide how they would move and see if they could move like them.

We then mad some bread, the children love to knead out the dough.

We then attempted to shape them into dinosaurs, fossils or dinosaur footprints.

Words from a couple of songs we used

Mr Dinosaur

Mr Dinosaur, Mr Dinosaur

Wave your tail, give a roar.

Stomp your feet on the ground.

Such a loud and rumbly sound.

Mr Dinosaur, give a roar.

Mr Dinosaur, Mr Dinosaur

Wave your tail, give a roar.

When you give your tail a shake

You could cause a big earthquake.

Mr Dinosaur, give a roar.

and this one sort of sang to If You're Happy and You Know It

There are dinosaurs stomping, all around.

There are dinosaurs stomping, all around.

There are dinosaurs all around stomping on the ground.

There are dinosaurs stomping, all around.

There are dinosaurs flying all around.

There are dinosaurs swimming all around

There are dinosaurs eating all around.

Pattern Blocks

I spent some time creating some pattern block pictures for the children to use. While making the pictures we talked about the different shapes, how many sides they had, the different colours etc. Good for hand eye co-ordination too.

They then spent time creating their own designs, the first one is a robot.

Water Beads

I've come across lot of talk of children playing with water beads and decided to get some as they seem to have gone down well with other children. They were a huge hit! The first time we used some, I let them swell up over night, so they had some to play with straight away but I also emptied a packet into some water when the children arrived so they could see how much the beads grew. They kept popping over to look a the tub to see how much bigger they had got.

So this week we hydrated 5 packs for our play session including some clear beads. The clear beads are great, we put them in a separate pot to start with because when they are in water you can't see them unless the water moves. The children were surprised that there were beads in the pot and there were squeals of delight when they put there hand in and felt the beads that they couldn't see.

In case you haven't come across water beads before, they are used for flower arranging but are safe to handle etc but I wouldn't use them with the babies particularly if they like to put everything in their mouth.

This is a before and after hydration.

In between play we store them with a little water in a large pot with a lid.

So for today's play session, we had 3 different sized water trays, one empty, one with the water beads and the other set up with the sea animals etc, as well as the toy boats and different containers.

They spent a long time just filling up different containers and pouring them either back into the main tub or into other containers. Seeing how heavy they made the bottle, comparing the size of bottles, counting how many bead would fit in a bottle, never did find out, it's rather a lot anyway!

We also spent time seeing how many beads would sink a boat, a floating lid etc,

 sorting them into different colours in the pots and even layering the different coloured beads to see what patterns they could make.

I must admit I like playing with the water beads too, they really do have a lovely feel. the ones I used are these , just in case you are tempted to have a go too :)