Dinosaur Dig

Materials Needed:
DINOSAUR FACT PAGE
Dinosaur Egg Recipe (below)
Mallet or Hammer, dry paint brush
Dinosaur Identification (Dinosaur Encyclopedia or internet resource)

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Our current science unit is Dinosaurs (chosen by Maisie). I love that we have the option of doing so many hands on activities and this was one I was really looking forward to.

First we had to make our dinosaur eggs. I found some little plastic dinosaur figures on sale at Target in the summer (2.48 for 12 dinosaurs) and used the following recipe to create an "egg" outer shell:

Dinosaur Eggs

INGREDIENTS:

1 cup flour
1 cup used coffee grinds
1/2 cup salt
1/2 cup sand
1 cup water

small plastic dinosaurs

What you do:

1. Mix all dry ingredients together. Slowly add water and knead until the mixture is is moist--like bread dough. (In the recipe I used, it said to try and use less than a cup, but I had a hard time getting the mixture to moisten enough).

2.Form the dough around the plastic dinosaur to look like an egg.

Let dry for 4-5 days, or put in a 100-150 degree oven for a few hours.

Our eggs never dried all the way inside, but it worked out perfectly for us as the outside of the egg was hard to crack (we had to use a heavy mallet), but the girls could get the dinosaurs out of the center because it was mushy.

I hid the eggs in the backyard in various areas, including the rocks. Each girl was responsible for finding two eggs, then cracking them open to reveal their dinosaurs. It was pretty cold, so the girls worked rather fast!

Once the dinosaurs were extracted, we went inside to determine which dinosaurs we found. With our big Dinosaur book and the internet, we named our dinosaurs. Maisie--our 6.5 year old--completed a dinosaur report page. Feel free to use it if you'd like, the file is linked above. Our plan is to create on of these reports for every dinosaur studied and put them in a binder. For further study, one can have the child rearrange the reports by different topics such as Food source (Herbivore/Carnivore), Geographic Location, or Time Period.