Theory Thursday: Volcano Fossil

There is a lady at our church that gives us all sorts of fun school things. She gave us the egg spinner, the JELL-O egg mold, a ton of file folder games, and a few other things.

She gave Jake a special gift last weekend, just because. She even wrapped it up for him. You can bet he was super excited! And then, once he saw what it was, he was even more excited! No more of this fake paleontologist stuff. He was going to excavate his very own fossil.

The kit came with a cute little shovel and a hardened-sand volcano.

Jake went right to work chipping away the sand.

We were both surprised just how much work it was.

And how much of a mess it made.

Eventually though, he made enough progress to spot the treasure inside.

It still took a while longer to work away the sand from the rest of the fossil.

 Success! You can see just how happy his blurry little face was once he finally broke the fossil loose.

We're not exactly sure what it is. It just looks like a rock to me, and maybe it is, but maybe it is a real fossil. Jake was confused at first. He was under the assumption that all fossils are dinosaur bones. It led the way for a discussion about what fossil are. 

It was a perfect learning experience!

I wish I would have kept track of how long the activity took him. It was very time-consuming, which is a good thing. Of course, we had to keep the sand so we can wet it, hide a new treasure inside, and practice paleontology all over again! It's the gift that keeps on giving.

Dino Dig

Jake has been on a big dinosaur kick for a few weeks. We've checked out books from the library, colored pictures, and went to the "dinosaur museum." He has talked about wanting to dig for dinosaur bones. I have talked about wanting to make a sensory bin. This was the perfect excuse to go buy some rice. Twenty pounds of rice ($10) and eight dinosaurs ($1) later, and our sensory bin was complete.

 

They had so much fun! They loved being paleontologists and sticking their hands deep into the rice, looking for "dinosaur bones." They had fun using their hands, measuring cups, measuring spoons, and a few other utensils to play in the rice. We talked about how it felt cold, powdery, and like little pebbles. Zac took a couple of bites. He wasn't impressed.

They especially liked pouring the rice into other cups . . . and on the floor . . . and on themselves. It did not take long for it to end up all over the living room. (Next time, we will be using a larger blanket!) They even took off their socks and jumped right in. This produced lots of giggles. 

After the fifth time dumping the rice from the blanket back into the bin and an hour an a half of playing, I called it quits and put our sensory bin away. Poor Zac cried like a baby. But that's ok, because he is a baby.

The kids can't wait until we pull the bin out again. 

My vacuum has a differing opinion.