Thursday, October 6, 2011

D is for Dinosaur Eggs

This week was D week and we had a really great time making dinosaur eggs.  Here's the recipe:

Dinosaur Eggs:
    1/4 cup of dirt
    1/4 cup of sand
    1/8 cup of flour
    1/8 cup of salt
    a bit of water
    small plastic dinosaur

mix dirt, sand, flour, salt, and water until it has a muddy consistency, then put in the dinosaur and mold your mud into an egg shape around the dinosaur. Then let the eggs dry. It doesn't really matter how dry they are, it's still fun to play with dirt and dinosaurs (it's raining this week so they will probably not be very dry).  When they are ready to hatch break the eggs open and have fun!!

The group getting into some really messy work!

it took a while to get all those ingredients just right



Once you've mastered the egg making, add a little twist with this step:
    Instead of just leaving your dinosaur eggs to dry on a tray, do it like the dinosaurs do (kind of ;)! Stomp around the playground with your best dinosaur feet and gather your supplies. We used leaves, twigs, flowers, tanbark, and even a bit of unwanted litter. Put all your best findings in with some dirt, water, and sand to stick it all together (we put ours in a shallow tupperware container for support). Put the eggs into your dinosaur nest, and wait until they're ready to hatch!

D helping make the nest

Our final product!  Eggs in a nest

We hid the nest under the bridge to keep it safe

I recommend doing this activity outside where you can have the kids help you collect the dirt, sand, and nest  pieces, it also doesn't matter how messy things get, just hose stuff off :)

p.s. I also made sure to put the dirt and sand in a different place from the salt and flour so as not to accidentally mix the edible with inedible in the containers.