We have been choosing to play with dinosaurs in the nursery.  Many playgroups. parents and previous nurseries also told us how interested the children are in finding out about dinosaurs.  

At nursery, we use talking tubs to help the children plan new topics.  Some of the children have been involved in a talking tub recently.  The talking tub is full of different dinosaur related resources.  It contained a fossil, a bone, a leaf, pictures of volcanoes, skeletons, footprints, stones and more.  The children each chose an object and spoke about it.  This allowed the staff to unpick the children’s knowledge and understanding and helped us to identify areas of interest as well as misconceptions.  There was a strong interest in finding out more about fossils, volcanoes and meat eaters.  The children also showed an interest in the size of dinosaurs.  There was also some confusion about volcanoes and fossils.  We will use this as a basis for our new topic – please see the planning sheet in nursery for more information.

Here are the talking tub planners.  They all drew pictures to show their key areas of interest or knowledge.  🙂