I found this neat dinosaur bone sand set at Dollar Tree and thought it would make for a fun activity. I buried all the pieces all over the sandbox for the kids to discover. I told them they were going on an dinosaur bone excavation. All three children were excited at the concept of digging up a dinosaur.
Please ignore any dirty fudge covered children in this post as dinosaur bone hunters are required at least one sugar free fudge pop and a swim in the pool before excavating a dino’s grave site. They tell me it’s in the handbook although I was never allowed to view this handbook.
As I said, I hid each piece in a different place in the sandbox. I buried them fairly deep in the sand. I also gave them shovels, a bowl of water (to clean the bones), and a brush to brush them off.
As they dug each part out they were supposed to clean it and begin to assemble to dinosaur. They did dig them out but were too excited about digging more that they forgot to clean the parts. They forgot all about the bucket of water and brush which is odd because usually a bucket of water is the flame to their inner moth.
When they found all the pieces they began to assemble the dinosaur and talk about the different features to try to figure out which dinosaur it could have been. “It has a bony frill and three horns, I bet it was a herbivore from it’s mouth. I know it’s a Triceratops.” said my son as I look at him as if aliens had taken over while thinking, oh man now I have to learn how to spell herbivore. Where did that answer come from? Years of dino related shows and books I suppose. Than again he is a self proclaimed invisible handbook carrying dino bone hunter. They must know these things
They began to assemble which was made all more difficult by the two year old who kept stealing pieces of the dino. In the end they formed their dinosaur and were very happy with the results. They have become very curious about the process of being a paleontologist now.
New words we learned in this activity.
Paleontologist – People who dig up dino bones.
Excavation – Digging up something that is buried.
And I learned what a frill is… It’s that thing on the back of their head.
