Syd O'Leary's favourite dinosaur is the megalosaurus.
''It was the first dinosaur ever found,'' she said.
''In England, in 1676.''
Syd is a year 6 student at Taieri Beach School, and she has been learning about dinosaurs.
Last week, the school had a picnic to celebrate what the students had learnt, complete with a dinosaur-themed lunch, speeches about dinosaurs, and a series of short performances.
Syd said her favourite dinosaur-related learning activity was an overnight visit to the museum, where students looked at dinosaur fossils.
It was not scary, she said, ''but you couldn't get to sleep''.
It was hard to sleep surrounded by her friends and dinosaur relics.
School principal Liz Bishop said the dinosaur unit was designed to capitalise on children's widespread fascination with the prehistoric reptiles.
''We're looking at developing their reasoning skills,'' she said.
''We used dinosaurs as a living ancient type of animal that we could study to put into different categories to try to understand why they're called certain types of dinosaurs; what scientists were looking for as they were classifying them; how they came about getting their first names.
''The children - even the little children - have learnt how to develop and look for patterns so they can put things together.''
The dinosaur unit was a great success overall, she said.
