I am pleased to present my plan for the dinosaur party this Saturday. I have been hired to lead a dinosaur adventure for a boy who is turning 6.
The Dinosaur Party Plan by Kerri Q. Twigg
1. As the child guests arrive, greet and encourage them to pick a safari hat and decorate it as they please. (I will have a glue-gun handy) I will set out sparkles, stickers, thread, buttons and various other found objects for them.
2. After everyone is there, I will state that I am a leading Palaeontologist and they are in a very important research centre for studying dinosaurs. I will then teach them 4 important practices of Palaeontologist
1. Being able to label and photograph a fossil
I will then ask the children to pose as different animals. One person will be chosen to identify what one other child is frozen as and pretend to take a picture. This will teach them about “tableaux” in theatre and work to focus their energy. Every child gets a turn.
2. The ability to package up a bone or fossil
I will bring in a very special rock and they will each take a turn in wrapping it in delicate fabric and carrying it across the room.
3. The ability to identify the date of a fossil (stratigraphy)
I will use fabric to symbolize 100 years. If a rock is placed under 5 layers of fabric how old it is? I will hide the rock and they will peel off the layers to determine the fossil age.
4. Ability to put the pieces together.
I am bringing in a dinosaur puzzle and they will put it together, working as a team.
After they complete these obstacles, we will put on our hats and set out to find the 11 parts of a dinosaur. They will each have a Dinosaur identification book. In it will be a place for notes and a diagram of a dinosaur that I got from here. As we find the bone, each child will be given the chance to label, photograph and package the bone. They will write down how old the bone is and they will be responsible for carrying that piece back to the research center.
I will have hidden 11 bones as there are 11 kids at the party. I will have made three distinct areas represented by the color of fabric the bones hide in. The areas are water, desert and caves.
After all the pieces are collected, we will go back to the research centre and piece the dinosaur together.
Voila!
