DIY Fossils

A rainy summer day called for an engaging indoor project. My NK has been SUPER into plato, so I decided to do an activity that involved homemade dough. The recipe is so easy and the ingredients can be found in your kitchen already!

4 Cups Flour

1 Cup Salt

2 Cups Water

I combined the ingredients in a bowl. (After trying to mix with a spoon for five minutes, I gave up and used my hands. I suggest going straight in with the hands.) When the mixture was complete, it was still a little sticky so I threw in a dash more flour until it no longer stuck to my hands.

Then, NK and I rolled the entire bowlful into balls and then flattened the balls out and spread them out around the table.

Nk then got his favorite dinosaurs together and we pressed them into each piece of dough. (We did full bodies and footprints.) If it wasn't raining, it would've been great to let him search outside for leaves, sticks, and anything else that could've really been fossilized. But alas, we were trapped indoors.

While we pressed, we talked about what a fossil is and how they are formed.

We baked the fossils for an hour at 350 degrees, let them cool, and then BAM! had our own little collection of fossils to play with at home.

Follow Up.

I plan to follow up this activity with a trip to the Natural History Museum to see some REAL REAL dinosaur fossils.

I also plan on making moon sand with NK this week, so another follow up will be burying the fossils in the sand and giving NK a toothbrush and spoon to uncover them all! I'll casually work in what an archeologist is, too. Of course (;