A Brief Conversation About Extinction

Documented in our Pre-school Atelier by Angela Chick, Atelierista at Reflections Nursery, Worthing on 10th July 2012

Anna (3yrs 6 mths); Ewan (4yrs 10 mths); Henry (4yrs 0 mths)

Anna: I saw a dinosaur in the museum.

Ewan: It wasn’t a real dinosaur… it was a skeleton.

Anna: It was a skeleton with skin!

Ewan: It’s not a skeleton if it has skin.

Anna: But I saw it!

Ewan: It wasn’t a real one because they’re extinct.

Anna: I saw it before they were extinct!

Ewan: No… because dinosaurs haven’t been here since when we were created by science!

Anna: What science?

Ewan: There was something called the Big Bang. The dinosaurs were here before the Big Bang, now they’re extinct.

Anna: No! I saw them before they were extinct. I saw them moving and I know it was real because it ate a fish!

Ewan: Maybe it just spat it out. They’ve been extinct a really long time. They’re not even alive!

Anna: But I saw them before they were extinct!

Ewan: No, ask your mummy and she will tell you that they’re extinct.

Anna: They’re real life, see? Look at this book!

Ewan: That’s just a picture! They’re not real ones.

Anna: This shows the clock when the dinosaurs were extincting…

Henry: They don’t stink!

Ewan: When we say extinct, it’s ex… tinct, not ‘stink’.

Anna: They weren’t extinct when I went, I saw the real one! Like this!

Ewan: No, I told you, that’s a picture – see?

Anna: OK, this is a picture, someone did draw it.

Ewan: Maybe a grown-up did.