Fossil Making

Since our part-time summer homeschooling was going so swimmingly, I decided to add in another subject; science. Casia's science instruction in school was all over the map. They covered some weather, a little electricity, butterflies and lots of other little odds and ends. I really didn't know where I should start.  Fortunately, my sister gave Casia a Biology book the previous year and we never really got a chance to get into it. I decided to pull it out and see how I could best put it to use.

The book is a Prentice Hall, Biology: The Study of Life. While perusing the chapters, I noticed a few things that attracted me to the book.  The first is that they have a Laboratory Investigation at the end of each chapter, many making use of a microscope, some basic chemistry and some really cool hands on experiments - very exciting!  The other aspects that appealed to me were that it seems really well organized, covers topics I know she is interested in delving into and it's all in one place so there's less leg work I'll have to do for science.

Since we've been covering early humans in history, literature and art, it seemed only natural to go straight to the chapters on evolution.  She learned about fossils and how they are used to further our knowledge of the distant past.  We discussed early and modern hypotheses on the origins of life.  We also covered the modern Theory of Evolution and the processes of adaption and natural selection.

I then assigned her the reading of Who Was Charles Darwin, by Deborah Hopkinson for another Language Arts book. (Casia and I both love the "Who Was..." series of books, and I highly recommend them for kids that love to read biographies.)

And because I love to end  the day with a project, we followed all this up with making our own fossils.  I sent Casia and her brother, Garrett, out into the yard to collect any plants that have unique shapes and textures.  Meanwhile, I hopped on line to find a fossil dough recipe.  I came across this page:

Making Your Own Fossil Prints

We followed the instructions and then rolled out the dough onto wax paper.  The kids then had a lot of fun pressing their nature findings into the dough.  When we were done, they each had their own piece of dough with visible impressions.  We left it to sit out for a couple of days to dry, but it took a really long time with all the humidity.  Even when I pulled them out again a couple of days later and took the 'after' pictures, they still weren't dry all the way through. 

Mixing Ingredients

This was a very simple recipe that both kids were able to do independently.  They love cooking, so these kinds of projects are always a hit.

Pressing Flowers 

The kids gathered a nice variety of objects to put in their dough; flowers, twigs, various leaves, a cricket, mushrooms, twigs and a feather.

Feeling the Fossils

You can see in this picture that it still wasn't completely dry after two days, but it dried enough to give the kids the feel for what a real fossil is.

Yay! Project #2 was also a success, even with the problem of not drying out. Casia loved every aspect of this project and it was very simple to do. Another two thumbs up!