Applying knowledge and understanding

For the last 3 weeks, Room 7 has been in the Excite! and Explore! stage of our term long Dinosaur investigation. "What do I think I know" and "What have I found out" have been the questions during this phase. Now it is time to start putting the pieces together, a bit like a jigsaw puzzle. The final, longest stage of the dinosaur investigation is about to commence, the Explain! stage, where the key question is "What does it all mean?"

One of the explaining tasks the children have been given is to create their own, recently discovered dinosaur species. They need to apply all that they have learned about dinosaur habitat, eating/hunting habits, appearance and other characteristics, to their newly created dinosaur. They will write a 'scientific report' that describes their dinosaur for the wider scientific community (other classes!).

In this post are photos of the first stages of the 'creation' process, where children brainstorm their ideas first, then organise these ideas into different categories. These categories serve as the basis for paragraphs in the 'scientific report'.