Winning Dinosaur Party Food-Great Ideas For Dinosaur Themed Party Food For Your Little Monster

Dinosaur Themed Party Food

Winning Dinosaur Party Food-Great Ideas For Dinosaur Themed Party Food For Your Little Monster

Winning Dinosaur Party Food-Great Ideas For Dinosaur Themed Party Food For Your Little Monster

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Winning Dinosaur Party Food-Great Ideas For Dinosaur Themed Party Food For Your Little Monster

Winning Dinosaur Party Food-Great Ideas For Dinosaur Themed Party Food For Your Little Monster

When it comes to organising that dinosaur themed Party for your dinosaur obsessed youngster, one of the many questions we get asked is how to customize the Food to fit the dinosaur party theme.  It is not easy to find dinosaur shaped sandwiches and tit-bits in your local supermarket, but you needn't spend a fortune to make sure that your dinosaur themed party buffet cuts the "Mesozoic mustard".

For example, dinosaur shaped cookie cutters are inexpensive to purchase and can be used to create cookies shaped like prehistoric animals.  However, don't be limited to just the sweet eleMents of your buffet when it comes to using the cookie cutters.  We have used both the plastic and tin cookie cutter types to createdinosaur shaped savoury snacks.  With a cookie cutter, it is simple and easy to make your own dinosaur shaped sandwiches.

Using soft bread (we find that a quality white or wholemeal loaf works best); and a series of simple fillings such as spreads-peanut butter, jam, honey, Pasta, chicken or dinosaur shaped sandwiches and light bites can be created by simply using the cookie cutter to cut out the slices once the sandwich has been prepared.  A firm push into the sandwich with the cookie cutter is all that is required, but have a pAir of kitchen scissors or a sharp knife handy in case you need to trim off any bits.  This is a simple and straight forward way of theming up your dinosaur party platter.

The majority of dinosaurs known from the fossil recordwere vegetarian so don't forget to put plenty of salad out for the young dinosaur fans.  They are used to seeing strange plants such as cycads and tree ferns alongside dinosaurs in their picture books and you can use this to encourage them to eat their greens.  A mixed green salad containing such delights as rocket and a little water cress can resemble the most exotic of ancient prehistoric plants.  For added spice to handful of washed dandelion leaves can be put into the salad bowl.  Dandelion leaves are edible, but don't forget to wash them and use them sparingly as they are a diuretic.  The "toothed" edges of the leaves make a great prehistoric addition to any salad, we have even called them "t. rex jaws, it is fun to Watch the young party guests tryingto find a green t. rex jaw and put it onto their plate at feeding time.

Take a cocktail stick and a coloured piece of paper, prepare a label for the sandwiches using simple dinosaur vocabulary.  A quick peek inside your child's dinosaur book should provide you with plenty of names for inspiration, for instance we have created "Jurassic Jam" and "Hypsilophodon Honey sandwiches in the past.  The cocktail stick can be used to stick the label securely in the plate of sandwiches, but don't forget to blunt the end that points upwards, we don't want any of your little monsters pricking their fingers.

Winning Dinosaur Party Food-Great Ideas For Dinosaur Themed Party Food For Your Little Monster

Early Years Foundation Stage Teaching Reception and Using Dinosaurs

Using Dinosaurs and Fossils to help Educate Nursery to Foundation STAGe

Early Years Foundation Stage Teaching Reception and Using Dinosaurs

Early Years Foundation Stage Teaching Reception and Using Dinosaurs

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Early Years Foundation Stage Teaching Reception and Using Dinosaurs

Early Years Foundation Stage Teaching Reception and Using Dinosaurs

Within the United Kingdom, a series of strategic learning goals have been established for all school children from nursery sTAGe through to reception/foundation and beyond to key sTAGes one, two, three and four. These learning goals are incorporated within the National Curriculum and provide assistance and guidelines for teachers and teaching assistants to ensure educational standards are met across the country. Key learning goals are built around concepts such as developing knowledge and understanding of the world, building communication skills, language and listening skills. The use of dinosaurs, dinosaur information, prehistoric animal drawing materials and real fossils of prehistoricanimals can make an excellent contribution to the teaching curriculum. In addition, such activities lend themselves to extension and topic work.

The Early Learning Goals-The Link with Dinosaurs

The Early Learning Goals are a fundaMental eleMent of the Early Years Foundation STAGe (EYFS) statutory framework. These establish the expectations and standards of children ages 3-5 years of age in readiness for the move from nursery to the formal reception/foundation stage of Primary education. Some children will exceed the standards that they are expected to attain, other children depending on their own particular learning needs and learning style will be working towards the standards. However, the key aim of these criteria is to establish a broad teachingthe framework enables young learners to progress from nursery through to more formal education.

The use of dinosaurs and prehistoric animals can make a contribution to the learning goals and permit teachers and teaching assistants to develop extension activities that permit young children to learn through imaginative and creative play.

For the early years foundation stage, and the key learning outcomes are divided into six specific sections:

Personal, Social and Emotional Development Problem Solving, Reasoning and Numeracy Physical Development Creative Development Communication, Language and Literacy Knowledge and Understanding of the World

Teachers can utilise dinosaurs and prehistoric animals in a variety of ways to ensure that these key learningoutcomes are attained. For example, when considering the development of young children's knowledge and understanding of the world, fossils can be used to introduce concepts such as finding out about living and extinct animals and observing similarities and differences between them. Most children have knowledge of dinosaurs and prehistoric animals from children's books, films and television. Dinosaurs have a high media profile and since a new species is named and described every four weeks or so, dinosaurs are frequently featured in newspapers and magazines.

When our qualified teaching staff visit a nursery or reception we work to a formal lesson plan and build our teaching programmes around the key learning objectives. The main benefit of such outreach is that it can kick offrange of extension topics and related activities to help reinforce learning. It is important to maintain the interest of all the class, this can be difficult due to the attention span of children this age. As a result, teaching sessions are limited to around 45 minutes and aim to accommodate a range of learning styles.

Palaeontologists Visiting a Nursery/Reception Class

When a qualified teacher/palaeontologist visits a class it is important to engage all the children. Working around key themes related to the learning objectives different materials can be used to help young children learn about the similarities and differences of objects, for example between cast fossils, models and real fossils. Children can handle and feel objects and establish that they arewarm, cold, soft, hard, heavy, light and such like. This encourages them to use describing words and communicate with others. Crucially, such sessions should be limited to around forty-five minutes to allow effective engagement, but dinosaurs and fossils lend themselves to a range of extension activities such as model making, painting and drawing, drama, story telling, creative play and expression.

Each session would be normally broken down into ten minute teaching blocks, for instance, the first part of the teaching session would involve introductions, overview and explanations. Some of the materials used by palaeontologists such as knee-pads, hard hats can be passed round allowing the children to handle the objects. It is best if the children can form a circle so that thepalaeontologist/teacher can stand in the middle of the ring and bring in objects so that all the children can feel that they are part of the lesson.

The second part of the session involves the first handling and passing around of fossils and models. It is best to have some dinosaur toys so that the children can make the link between the model and the fossil of the actual animal. The teacher and teaching assistant can be brought in to help describe and handle objects and supervise object handling. Teeth and casts of meat-eating dinosaurs work effectively and there is normally one child to class that will prove to be very knowledgeable. The lesson can be then be concluded by summarising what objects the children have handled and what they have learned. It is helpful to ask thechildren what their favourite part of the session was. A quick word with the teaching assistant and staff to discuss extension ideas following the session is always welcome.

Dinosaurs and prehistoric animals do lend themselves to helping engage young learners and provide excellent motivation to help children at the nursery and reception stage gain knowledge and understanding of the world around them. Prehistoric animals and fossils can help with young children's communication and learning skills as well as helping them to use creative and imaginative play to engage with others and develop a knowledge of animals alive and extinct.

Early Years Foundation Stage Teaching Reception and Using Dinosaurs