Learning about dinosaurs and fossils at Dorset Museum 23.1.14

This morning we went on a trip to Dorset Museum in Dorchester. The children were very excited about travelling by minibus and having a packed lunch away from school. They were also excited about seeing some real life fossils!

When we arrived we met a lady called Alex and her helpers who showed us around their museum and helped us to learn more about dinosaurs and fossils. We met a soft toy diplodocus that wanted us to hunt for footprints left by his friend the megalodon! We set off around the museum with buckets, searching for and collecting any megalodon footprints we could find...there was quite a lot! We counted up how many each group had collected.

We then looked at some large paintings depicting all kinds of dinosaurs and pre-historic life. We spotted fierce meat eaters such as the tyrannosaurus and sea swimming dinosaurs such as the ichthyosaur. We also spotted ammonites, snails and insects! We learnt that ammonites swam backwards and had long wobbly legs. 

In our groups we then looked at lots of different dinosaur fossils and artefacts and sorted them; deciding which lived in the sea and which lived on land. We discovered that most fossils were actually found from the sea... which is why we are especially lucky living so close to the Jurassic coast!
We also helped to tell a story adding actions, roars and even playing shakers as we learnt about different kinds of dinosaurs and what they might have looked like. We thought about which ones would be our favourite!

After a snack, we each made our own megalodon footprint in a piece of clay. We have brought it back to school to dry and look forward to bringing it home. 

It was very exciting visiting the museum and seeing such big dinosaur fossils, footprints and teeth up close!! Perhaps you will return to the museum one day with your families. There was certainly lots more to see! Well done, everyone.