Fossils!

This Friday we learned about fossils. First we had a discussion what is a fossil, how it is formed and what we can learn from it. We even observed a real fossil. We finished the introduction by reading together a book “Fossils Tell of Long  Ago” that described different types of fossils in more details.  

Afterwards, we started working on a fossil cast that demonstrates how real fossils are made in the nature. Students made an imprint of a shell or a Lego piece into clay put in the cup, then removed the object and plaster was poured over the clay impression. We had to wait until the end of the lesson to let the plaster dry before we could see our fossils. During that time, we did other exciting fossil related activities. In the following activity we worked like paleontologists. Students formed groups and each group looked for puzzle pieces that were buried in a pan filled with rice. Once students found all puzzle pieces they had to put them together to see what prehistorical animal was buried inside. 

After finishing this activity, we talked a bit about dinosaurs and put some dinosaurs figures and pictures on the table for display. Then all students got some Play Dough that they stretched on a plate. This was the base for creating a pasta fossil imprint of one of the dinosaurs from the display by pressing an uncooked pasta of various shape against the Play Dough. After removing the pasta, a dinosaur imprint was left in the Play Dough and we guessed which dinosaur left the imprint behind. Finally, our fossil casts were dry so we carefully opened our cups, removed the clay, and this revealed our amazing fossils! All fossils looked great and the best part was that all students could take their fossil home!