Last week we wrapped up our dinosaur theme by making dinosaur fossils (it was very easy!). The kids pressed their small dinosaurs into play-doh to make their dinosaur fossils. I did the same thing but used Crayola Air-Dry Clay so that the fossils could dry and harden for use in our Dino Dig. The play-doh fossils are the colorful ones pictured below and the clay fossils are the white ones. The fossils came out great and the kids were very excited to show them to my husband when he came home. (Thank you to our family friend for the wonderful idea!)
After our fossils dried and hardened (this process took about two days) I buried the fossils and some of our small dinosaurs in a bin of rocks (these bins were on sale for $1 each at Home Depot and are perfect for dinosaur hunting). I gave the kids some shovels and pales and let them dig up the dinosaur fossils. This went over amazingly well! Every dinosaur and fossil discovery was very exciting. I heard a lot of “wow! look mom, a fossil” and “mom, I found a dinosaur!” The kids spent a little over an hour digging up the fossils and dinosaurs and then burying them again. My older kids then spent another hour sorting the rocks into piles of different colors/sizes/etc. This turned out to be a great afternoon activity. (I actually ended up leaving this activity out for a few days for them to explore. They played with the bin for about an hour every day it was out!)
And here’s a list of some of our favorite dinosaur books! We’ve read these so many times that I could probably recite them by heart!
1. Any one of the books from Jane Yolen’s “How Do Dinosaurs…” series. Of course, one of our favorite from Jane Yolen is How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight?.
2. Dinosaur ABC by Simon Mugford
3. Curious George Dinosaur Tracks by Julie Tibbott
4. Dinosaur Pet by Marc Sedaka
5. National Geographic Kids Ultimate Dinopedia
6. Any of the Danny and the Dinosaur books by Syd Hoff.