Want to help your little take their love of dinosaurs to the next level? Making your own fossils together is a great way to do that! I have done this activity with literally hundreds of children, and it is ALWAYS a winner. The perfect dinosaur activity for kids!
WHAT IS A FOSSIL?
You will only need a few supplies that you probably already have available in your toy room or kitchen. But first, let’s build a little background knowledge for you and your little. Fossils are the remains or impressions of prehistoric creatures that have been preserved for a very long time. Fossilization is the process of something becoming a fossil. Fossilization is how we know that enormous dinosaurs and many other extinct animals even existed! Their bones and teeth were fossilized when they turned into stone over a long period of time. Your little will love this dinosaur activity!
TYPES OF FOSSILS
BODY FOSSILS are shells and bones that have turned to stone over time. Most dinosaur fossils are body fossils.
Small animals and insects are sometimes caught in gummy tree resin. These fossils are formed IN AMBER when the tree resin hardens. Fossils in amber are super cool because they show every detail of the preserved animal!
IMPRESSION FOSSILS are formed when a leaf, skin, or shell falls on soft earth such as mud and leaves an imprint. The original leaf rots away, but the impression it leaves in the mud will stick around and harden into stone.
TRACE FOSSILS are ancient footprints from the past. Dinosaur footprints can be found in rocks that were once soft mud, and these are trace fossils.
MOLD AND CAST FOSSILS form when ancient creatures die and leave an imprint in the sediment. The creature decays away, but the mold remains. If the mold fills with new sediment creating the actual shape of the ancient creature, that is called a cast.
MAKE YOUR OWN FOSSILS DINOSAUR ACTIVITY
With so many different types of fossils, the learning and play is endless in this dinosaur activity!
WHAT YOU WILL NEED TO MAKE FOSSILS IN AMBER:
- Clear, orange or yellow dish soap
- Yellow, orange and red food coloring
- Plastic insects
- small, clear plastic cups
Click here for a cart filled with these supplies, and choose what you need to order.
INSTRUCTIONS:
STEP 1: Gather your supplies.
STEP 2: Talk to your little about fossils. What do they already know? What would they like to learn? Decide together that you will make fossils in amber!
STEP 3: **NOTE** This portion of the activity may be best done outside or in the bathtub or at the kitchen sink on a cold day. Place one plastic insect in each plastic cup. Cover the insect with dish soap. Squeeze a few drops of food coloring. Compare your cup to real images of insects fossilized in amber. Let you little get messy with sensory play, swirling and dunking the insects. Add water to create BUBBLES and extend the fun.
WHAT YOU WILL NEED TO MAKE IMPRESSION FOSSILS:
- Leaves, sticks, rocks and other small organic material collected from outside
- Play doh or homemade play dough
INSTRUCTIONS:
STEP 1: Gather your supplies.
STEP 2: Talk to your little about fossils. What do they already know? What would they like to learn? Decide together that you will make impression fossils!
STEP 3: Go outside and gather organic material that you will use to make your impression fossils. The best option is to find leaves from different trees. If it is winter, sticks and rocks will work great as well.
STEP 4: Make homemade play doh using the recipe at this link OR use play doh you already have at home. Roll the play doh out on a flat surface and press your nature items into it. Lift them out and admire your impression fossil. Make multiple fossils and compare them. Squash the play doh, roll it out again, and make new impression fossils!
WHAT YOU WILL NEED TO MAKE TRACE FOSSILS:
- Small plastic dinosaur figurines
- Play doh
- Small and large popsicle sticks
- Fork
- Spoons
- chopsticks
INSTRUCTIONS:
STEP 1: Gather your supplies.
STEP 2: Talk to your little about fossils. What do they already know? What would they like to learn? Decide together that you will make trace fossils!
STEP 3: Look at images of real trace fossils together. You could choose their favorite dinosaur and look up what its footprints looked like. You could compare the footprints of two different types of dinosaurs. How are they similar? How are they different? Which dinosaur had a bigger footprint?
STEP 4: Roll out the play doh and use the tools you gathered (fork, spoon, chopsticks, etc) to recreate the dinosaur footprint in the play doh. Can you make multiple footprints? Is your dinosaur running or walking? How would the trace fossil change in each case?
STEP 5: Use the plastic dinosaur figurines to make more dino footprint trace fossils! What a fun dinosaur activity!
WHAT YOU WILL NEED TO MAKE MOLD AND CAST FOSSILS:
- Air dry clay
- Plastic dinosaurs
- Plastic insects
- Leaves, sticks, rocks and other organic materials
- Anything else your little would like to fossilize!
Click here for a cart filled with these supplies, and choose what you need to order.
INSTRUCTIONS:
STEP 1: Gather your supplies.
STEP 2: Talk to your little about fossils. What do they already know? What would they like to learn? Decide together that you will make mold and cast fossils!
STEP 3: Roll out the air dry clay. Imprint each item that you would like to make into a fossil (plastic dinos, insects, leaves, sticks, etc.) in a separate piece of air dry clay. Remove the original toy from the air dry clay.
STEP 4: While you are waiting for the clay to harden, talk to your little about mold and cast fossils. The toy they used to make the imprint represents the actual animal. Imagine a real t-rex died in your air dry clay! When we lifted the toy out, that represented the t-rex decaying. Now we are left with a mold fossil, which is the imprint in the clay. Next, we will make the cast.
STEP 5: Fill the air dry clay fossil molds with water and place them in the freezer for a few hours or overnight. Pop the fossil shape ice cube out of the air dry clay mold to see the cast! Explore how the cast fits into the mold, but the original t-rex is long gone!
EXTENSION ACTIVITIES:
- Create a habitat for dinosaur fossils
- Engineer your own dinosaur
- Share your fossils with a friend
- Share your little’s fossil creations on social media @littlehandsonscience. I would LOVE to see what masterpieces they create!