Salt Dough Coprolites

By -
Making Salt Dough Coprolites is the perfect homemade dough activity for any dinosaur unit!  Preschoolers (and older kids!) love it!



It may be that my kids are the only ones who are fascinated with the idea of dinosaur poop...but it may be that your kiddos will love talking about it too!

Coprolite:  fossilized feces

The cool thing about dinosaur coprolites is that you are not just holding dinosaur poop...you are holding dinosaur poop that has turned into a rock!

Scientists can learn all kinds of information from coprolites...everything from the health of the dinosaur or animal to what their diet typically included.

Here is a picture of a real coprolite made by a meat-eating (carnivorous) dinosaur in Canada:


The scale bar in the picture is 15 centimeters (or about 6 inches) long.  You can also find and/or buy coprolites that are much smaller.

Today, we're talking about making your own!  You can even use the process to simulate what happens in real life!

You'll need a simple salt dough recipe.  We used 1 cup of salt, 1 cup of water, and 2 cups of flour.  Just knead it together for about 5 minutes, and pass out chunks to your kiddos!

After they have designed their "poop," you can let it dry out (or place it in a warm oven for an hour or so) to mimic years of hardening and mineralization.  Finally, let your children paint it!  As a real coprolite is formed, the poop absorbs minerals from the environment until it hardens into a rock.  Those minerals can be colored, or not!


Some of the other things we had fun with was making poop like what deer, bears, and rabbits would make.  Each animal has a distinctive shape, and kids are fascinated by the idea of professionals who spend their entire careers studying animal poop!  This website has great information about identifying what kind of animal makes what kind of poop (also called scat).

If you want to learn more about dinosaur poop and coprolites, I love this book (it's a lot of fun for kids too!):

(Amazon Affiliate Link):



Also, if you'd like to buy your own authentic, certified dinosaur coprolites, I would love to recommend using Paleo Poop.  They are a small company that is delightful to work with who collects the coprolites from Canada and sells them at very reasonable prices.




Are you guys making salt dough coprolites?  I'd love to know!


And, today is this month's edition of the Best Sensory Dough Recipes!  



Be sure to check out these fun salt dough ideas and recipes:  

Galaxy Salt Dough | Lemon Lime Adventures
Salt Dough Memories | Study at Home Mama
Scented Salt Dough Pendants | Raising Lifelong Learners
Salt Dough Seashells | Creative World of Varya
Salt Dough Flowers | Wildflower Ramblings
Salt Dough Coprolites | Preschool Powol Packets
Watermelon salt dough recipe| Frogs and Snails and Puppy Dog Tail
Microwave Salt Dough | In The Playroom
Nature Printing with Salt Dough | Squiggles and Bubbles

LEGO Salt Dough Paperweights | The Pleasantest Thing




I may share at any of these parties!



Never miss another post again!  Sign up for our weekly updates newsletter and get links to all our posts once a week in your inbox!  Sign up here!!





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Science Experiment: Elephant Toothpaste

By -
Image
Update: "Elephant toothpaste" is a science experiment that I used to do with my high school students.  It is a strong multi-sensory demonstration that goes great with a lot of chemistry concepts. It is also very popular with preschoolers and homeschoolers!  The internet loves it too! It has now been read by more than 3.9 million people! This was the post that started the trend on science activity sites across the internet and "irl!"  Thank you for being here...I hope you enjoy it as well!  💕  This exciting science experiment works great in a discussion on reactions, as a demonstration, or as an actual experiment. We've also done seasonal twists with "elephant toothpaste" like making it in a pumpkin and using it for " reindeer toothpaste !" To use it as a science project, perform it once with your child, then ask your child what might happen if you changed the amounts or left out an ingredient.  Any time you experiment...
Read more

Kind Words Sensory Lesson Friendship Activity

By -
Image
This sensory lesson includes a kindness activity for kids that is short and sweet,  and makes teaching kindness a beautiful thing! Learning to use kind words with our friends is one friendship lesson that I think we can never cover enough...kids always need reminding (sometimes adults do too)!  You will need these simple supplies for the kindness activity: cotton balls, course sandpaper, cup, Should I Share My Ice-Cream by Mo Willems Directly teaching good friendship skills, like using kind words, serves two purposes: 1- You can refer to the lesson when someone forgets or needs reminding, and 2- These skills are not intuitive for all preschoolers. This is a perfect age to bring empathy and kindness to their attention and help them cultivate these skills! You can use this lesson plan exactly as I did it with our kiddos, or adapt it to fit your group! 1- Read  Should I Share My Ice-Cream  by Mo Willems.   {Image below is an Amazon Affi...
Read more

Crazy Cool Giraffe Science Experiment

By -
Image
Do you know what color giraffe skin is? Today we're using a capillary action science experiment to make our own giraffe skins in this fun giraffe science experiment project! (Read on...I'll tell you the color in a moment! AND I have a few more fun giraffe facts at the end! Anyway, go on and make a guess before you see the answer!) Fun Spot  Giraffe  Fact:  There are four different giraffe species:  the Masai Giraffe, the Rothschild Giraffe, the Somali Giraffe, and the Nigerian Giraffe.  Each has its own unique spot pattern.  Even more unique, every single individual giraffe has a different spot design.  Just like fingerprints on people and stripes on a zebra, spots on a giraffe are unique in every individual! Giraffe skin is mostly grey. (Were you right?) It's also really tough and thick.  The coat is a shade of tan with brown spots or patches.  Male giraffes actually get darker as they get older! To make our "giraffe ...
Read more