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Introduction
This primary tip is inspired by a recent trip to the fascinating London Natural History Museum. The range of English language lessons for primary and secondary learners based on the museum are endless. I have chosen a few different angles to give you ideas on how to have a cross-curricular approach to your teaching and integrate natural science and history.
Aims
- To inspire and motivate learners through a cross-curricular approach
- To introduce an alternative range of professions vocabulary
- To introduce and practise body features - vocabulary such as tall, short, fat, thin
- To learn a dinosaur song
- To encourage learners to start a personal collection
- To work on memory skills (dinosaur facts)
Ages
8+
Vocabulary
- Zoologist (studies range of animal groups including the huge blue whale)
- Palaeontologist (studies fossils)
- Entomologist (studies insects)
- Popular dinosaur names: tyrannosaurus, diplodocus, triceratops
- Extinct / explorer
- Carnivore / herbivore
- Dinosaur body descriptions: long / short legs, tall, short, fat, thin, wings, huge, tiny…
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Explorer backpacks
When we went on our museum trip the children were given explorer backpacks for each section of the museum. They wore explorer hats and had a pair of binoculars to investigate bones, fossils and insects. Lead into this vast topic with a group task whereby they create their own explorer backpacks.
For your information: dinosaurs
Inside the backpack there were clues for the dinosaur section: they had to match the paw print to the dinosaur, match the picture of a skeleton to a real bone collection and they even had a replica bone which they had to identify.
- Split the class into three groups.
- Each group has a different mission.
- Group A are the Zoologists, group B the Palaeontologists and group C the Entomologists.
- Each group must decide together what they need to put into their backpacks to have a successful exploration.
They should decide:
- Where they are going to explore.
- What they need.
They can each draw a picture of an object each to put into their backpack. You can give each group an empty bag for them to fill up. When each group has finished they swap bags to see what the others have taken in their backpack to compare.
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Dinosaurs
Dinosaurs are great for practicing body parts, descriptions and for inspiring children’s imagination. Dinosaurs are mysterious and are on a par with monsters and dragons. Here children will be able to find out some facts about dinosaurs, discover what they looked like and go on an adventure with their invented online dinosaur.
- Use this online BBC Newsround reading text for children as it provides a simple selection of introductory texts on the topic of dinosaurs. http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/find_out/guides/
- There are four short texts so split the class into four groups (A, B, C and D).
- Once each group has read and deciphered their text they need to remember the key facts.
- Then make new groups with one person from each initial group so new groups will be formed with one A, one B, one C and one D.
- Each person must tell his/her group everything they can remember from the text they read.
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Body parts
In this online activity children have to complete the dinosaur skeleton. There is a label for each part of the skeleton such as ‘legs’, ‘tail’…
http://www.childrensmuseum.org/themuseum/dinosphere
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Games
This link takes you to some fantastic dinosaur games. Try the ‘Build a Dinosaur’ activity with your learners. This is authentic language use at its best and it’s sure to motivate your older primary learners. First they have to build their dinosaurs by choosing different body parts. Then with their invented dinosaur they go on an adventure.
http://www.childrensmuseum.org/themuseum/dinosphere/kids
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Geographical dinosaurs
Here they can look at the dinosaurs from their own country. They could pick features from lots of different dinosaurs and invent their own ‘---saurus’. This link takes you to 12 dinosaurs discovered in France.
http://internt.nhm.ac.uk/jdsml/nature-online/dino-directory/
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The Dinosaur song
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Dinosaur poems
I have just discovered David Horner’s website. He is a British poet and has an online ‘dinosaurus’ book stacked full of poems about dinosaurs. There are some great illustrations too. Go to the D section for a diplodocus poem: http://www.dinosaurus.co.uk/d.html
David Horner’s Brontosaurus poem:
Brontosaurus |
Brontosaurus sat on a wall;
brontosaurus had a great fall.
Bits and bones buried all over the land,
and so you know now how fossils began. |
Taken from http://www.davidhorner.com/frontpage.htm
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Jobs
It’s obviously very useful for primary learners to know the most common job titles such as policeman, doctor and teacher but there’s no reason why they can’t have a sophisticated range of vocabulary as well. Use the ‘ologist’ suffix to introduce a more exotic selection of jobs.
- This activity can link back to the opening explorer backpack activity.
- They can all decide which job interests them the most and pretend that they are that person. Go to ‘I want to be an ‘ologist’’ from the Natural History Museum site. They could make up a typical day in the life of…
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/kids-only/get-the-facts/ologist/index.html
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Collections
Open this stage by showing your class ‘your’ collection. You can make it up and bring in a whole load of soaps or bags, shoes – ask in the staff room for help!
- Ask the children if anyone has a collection.
- Brainstorm ‘things’ they could start collecting.
- You could agree to have a show and tell session at the end of the year if they sound motivated to start a collection.
- Here is a collection matching activity which is loosely connected to collecting fossils:
http://www.learnenglish.org.uk/words/Activities/collectdr.html
- Once they have identified what a fossil is from this matching game you can move on to this more detailed introduction to fossils: ‘What is a fossil?’ Each different type of fossil has a picture to match. You can project this for the whole class to see and cover up the descriptors or copy and paste this page to make a matching exercise in windows.
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/conker/fossils/what-is-a-fossil.htm
- This is what a fossil collecting tool kit should consist of:
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/conker/fossils/how-to-collect.htm
Refer back to their explorer backpacks and compare the contents to those of a fossil collector.
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Links
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