Ammonites, Trilobites, Megalodon Sharks, and Pancakes!

6/3/2017

It has been a wonderful week of measuring, comparing and filling our stomachs!
The children were shown two fossils; a trilobite and a Megalodon shark tooth. This was our week of thinking about life in the oceans from the first life of single cell creatures to the evolution of much bigger sea life.
The Ammonite fossil was passed around and children remarked on its small size. We talked about what a fossils are and how they were formed; how over time the hard parts of the ammonite were embedded in the rock.
One child said 'So we dig them up like dinosaur bones?'
We thought about the size of the trilobite and how small life had been in the seas; one girl had been to the science museum and brought in a cuddly e-coli and this tied in well to our discussion as we thought about size of the e-coli bacteria living in our intestines.
We compared small sea life to the Megladon shark – one of the biggest sharks to have ever lived. The Megladon grew up to 18m; we got the tape measure out and measured each child – each child was on average 1 metre tall. So the children lay, in the classroom, head to toe as 1 metre measures and we only got to 9 before we had run out of space and that is ONLY half the length of the Megladon shark! The children all got to pass the tooth of a Megladon shark around the circle. It was 7cm in length and we all agreed that we would not like to swim in the sea and meet one!

On Tuesday we made pancakes. We thought about where the ingredients came from; this made us think about wheat and what food grows up from the ground, what grows under ground and what food we pick from trees.
The best part was pouring maple syrup on our pancakes and eating them!

Latest News