The children came back after the half term to find eggs in the middle of the learning room, a colleague and I have found them earlier on this morning and thought we had heard a scratching noise coming from inside so we cordoned off the area with tape and warning signs.
The children spent the next few days exploring with magnify glasses and drawing pictures and labelled what they through was inside the eggs, they created their own warning signs to place around the eggs to make sure that what ever was inside them was safe. The children talked with each other about rules for looking after the eggs, some wrote down these too and displayed them. Their imagination spilled over to the creative area, children created 3d nests using various junk materials of their nests and they also used different medias to paint and draw what they thought could be in the egg “a chick, a penguin, a crocodile, a bird… maybe a snake… oh I don’t like snakes, they have scaly slimy skin” through these discussions we visited our school library and borrowed various books on different types of animals that hatch from an egg “maybe inside the green one is a frog” one child suggested.
On the Friday of that week, a small crack appeared in one of the eggs, this made the children so excited, to the point where they were taking it in shifts to watch the eggs to see if anything else was going to happen. Unfortunately not…. so the children went home that weekend talking to their parents about what could be in the eggs, the spontaneous home learning we received on Monday was incredible, some children had gone onto the internet and printed off a list of animals that hatch from eggs, others drew intricate pictures (I think Mums and Dads helped) to be displayed on our Wow Boards…. So on Monday, when the children came in they discovered that 2 of the eggs had cracked fully and footprints had appeared throughout the classroom, 2 different sets 1 leading to a vent high up in the wall, the other towards the door. The last egg had something trying to get out (all we could see was 2 feet and a tail) this sent our imaginations into over kill – what animals could have come out off the eggs? We spent the next few days investigating again, using ipads, books and talking to other children in older year groups to research what could have been inside, until the animal in the egg managed to wriggle free of the egg – it was a Triceratops! Wow a dinosaur, we went back to the other footprints and tried the think what dinosaurs had the same footprints as those we have found in the classroom, this led to us discovering lots of information about different dinosaurs not just the usual T-Rex. The enthusiasm of the children, parents and staff added to a trip to the Natural History Museum, allowed us to develop the topic around the children which led to us (adults and children) all learning a lot about dinosaurs during those 6 weeks and has created an interest in dinosaurs for many.
Creative EYFS 