Monday, May 12, 2014

A Dinosaur Train Birthday Party - The Fossil Dig

The children's program, Dinosaur Train has been in our house for just over 18months now and I cannot speak highly enough of it.  This year my gorgeous son wanted a Dinosaur Train themed Birthday party and of course that meant a fossil dig......
The boys in the sand pit digging, looking, searching for fossils.
To start I had to make the fossils - plaster of paris was the medium with which we worked with.  I had to employ my husband to tap the Vaseline lined moulds as I made and poured the liquid in.  He then set them in pre made sand moulds to hold them horizontally.  We were able to make two of each mould on the first day so two and a bit days later, we got our three bodies - skeletons??


It was so much fun burying them and then denoting their locations with cute signage :-)
I put little signs featuring Dinosaur Train characters, to tell the children/adults where to dig

I put little signs featuring Dinosaur Train characters, to tell the children/adults where to dig
It rained on the party day so we waited for the ground to dry out and went fossil hunting with a couple of Ben's friends. 

Then the dig began
the find - a skull!
and fossils were discovered...
Brush, Brush
and uncovered...more brush, brushing
 
 
and then carefully moved and reconstructed...


 Love the finished products...

 
Sadly only two of the fossil bodies survived the rain - I must not have mixed the plaster of paris up correctly or I did not give it enough time to dry before burying the pieces - not sure what I did incorrectly there - maybe a bit of both.

Because this was enjoyed so much by the children, we are going to rebury these in the kindy sand pit so the entire class can discover the excitement of being a palaeontologist.

2 comments:

  1. Hi Carol!
    Do you mind sharing where you found the molds for the dinosaur bones? Thank you so much!

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  2. Hi LB's Mom, I imported the molds from the UK and found the supplier on e-bay. I cannot remember who the supplier was I'm sorry, but if you cannot find a supplier let me know and I will find one for you. :-)

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