Today we had a very heated discussion on what dinosaur babies to make. I asked what the flying Dinosaur was called: 'Ducky or Peachtree?" Riley piped up from his play and said: "Ducky is a swimmer" Conan said Peachtree is a Pteranodon" Riley now stands up and shakes his finger, "No he is a Pteradactyl" I agreed with Riley and said: "Yes, I'll make a Pteradactyl baby for this egg" Now in hindsight and through some google research I have found out that Pteranodon's are also flyers! So Conan was also correct and perhaps we need to further our discussion...The language of dinosaurs you see is a complicated one full of long names and specific facts. I am excited to learn this language with the children, who I am finding are very good teachers.
The idea of making eggs for the dinosaurs came from Conan's request for a cave and Asher relaying how in Ice Age the T-Rex lays her eggs in the Ice Cave. I found a nest and some very psychedelic coloured plastic eggs. We took to the Plasticine and gumnuts (for eye's) and began making our baby dinosaurs. Asher was the egg guard as he had the biggest toughest dinosaur. We decided to make a three horn dinosaur baby and handed this to Asher: He checked over his eggs in the cave and switched some babies around declaring: "Hey guys come check out my triple egg" Asher is communicating his knowledge of three being triple!! Maths is now a part of dinosaur play!
Jasper decided he was making up his own species of Dinosaur: the Volcano Erupters.... This species is born in the volcano and helps to make it erupt. Jasper gave a demonstration, in went the baby 'Volcano Erupter' and slowly he rose upwards bringing with him the cellophane lava. Imagination adds magic to our play....
Riley, Jullian and Levi had their own part of the great valley for the 'Triceratops/Three Horns'. They decided that 'Three Horns' do not live in caves. They also decided that 'Three Horns' could not be friends with Long Necks.
I tried to bring in some 'Lavender' for the dinosaurs to eat, this was rejected and green crystal connectors were retrieved from a nearby table and labeled 'Tree Stars' - a dinosaurs favourite food. Conan then collected blue crystal connectors to represent water and then found red one's.... which of course represented 'red meat'. Suddenly Asher's T-Rex had several red crystal connectors - enough red meat for a hungry dinosaur... "Look Asher, red meat for your T-Rex" This transference of objects is conducive to divergent thinking and seeing more than one solution or purpose for a problem/object.... Children's play is so rich with learning, I often find myself becoming very excited about the use of a 'connector' as red meat...
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