Paleontologist Pretend Play - Dinosaur Fossil Excavation

This is a super easy DIY dinosaur excavation that uses dried oobleck to encase the dinosaurs/fossils. For instructions on how to make the oobleck, check out my sensory play tar pit post. After you've made the oobleck, drop in some dinosaur toys, prehistoric creatures, bug toys, shells, rocks, and/or shark teeth. 

Let the mixture dry for a day or two - if you can put it out in the sun it will help it dry faster. Once it looks completely dry and starts cracking a bit, gently flip it out onto a tray. We got the tray in the above photo in the dollar spot at Target several years ago but you could always just use a large foil pan. Then arm your kids with a wooden hammer and chisel, a paintbrush, and a magnifying glass and let them excavate! (If you don't have a wooden hammer and chisel, random play dough tools can do the job as well. The materials cracks apart really easily so you don't really need anything specific.)

Uncovering treasures hidden inside!

Brushing off the fossil very carefully and showing Daddy what he uncovered!

I put the tent up over them to shade them from the sun and because it made it feel even more like a dig site!

After everything had been excavated, Lil C and Squidgy had a great time pulverizing the dried oobleck into dust and they played in it for hours! I had other activities ready to go but they spent the whole afternoon here, turning the oobleck powder into a small world for their creatures. And then Lil C had the idea to add water back to the powder, creating oobleck once more! Now the whole process has begun again!