Educating Risa

A few days ago the Jim and the boys made their own fossils using plastic dino skeletons, sand, and plaster of Paris. Over the weekend we finished the project, removing the sand to reveal the fossil impressions. Jim began by carefully sliding the fossil “cake” out of the bowl, supporting it with his hand as he did so:

Gareth ran off, returning with a brush to “gently remove the overburden Daddy”:

Daegan followed suit, and the boys spent a few minutes removing the sand. Jim helped scoop the sand away into the bowl to contain the mess, and it wasn’t long before some “fossil bones” began to show:

The boys then switched to finer brushes to get into the crevasses to remove as much sand as possible:

And Jim gave it a final rinse in the tub, while the boys looked on:

Here’s the finished product:

Next time, we’ll make the plaster thinner, use a different and less detailed skeleton than the triceratops Daegan chose (the ribs were too fine to see clearly), and Daegan would like to try it with a lighter-coloured sand so as it does not “stain” the final result as much. (Though personally I like the “been in dirt millions of years / weather-beaten” look). It really was a pretty easy project, and at a fraction of the price of the pre-made dino fossil kits. Give it a go!