DIY Fossils

My kids love playing with dinosaurs. We like to talk about fossils when we play with dinosaurs. As a fun learning activity, we decided to make our own fossils. Before doing the activity, we talked about these facts:

• A special scientist, called a paleontologist, studies fossils
• Fossils can be more than dinosaur remains, such as plants, shells, or other animals
• The only direct way we have of learning about dinosaurs is by studying fossils

Here’s what you need to make your own fossils:

• 4 cups of flour
• 1 cup of salt
• 1 1/2 cups of water
• plastic animals or shells

Start by pouring the 1 cup of salt and 4 cups of flour together in a large bowl.

Then slowly pour in the water in the bowl while stirring. Then pour the salt dough mixture onto a cookie sheet and spread it out. Next, get out plastic animals, shells, plants or whatever and start making imprints in the dough.

Then put the cookie sheet in the oven at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for about 45 minutes. When it’s done, have fun looking at the fossil imprints in the dough!

You can even use them while you play with dinosaurs!

This was day 26 of the 31 Days of Play series. To see all the activities, visit here.