We like to have plenty of imaginative and sensory play areas for the children and this week we combined the two.

By tipping buckets of sand into last weeks water play, we created a dinosaur swamp using some mini dinosaur skeletons and a few large rocks.

The children had a very messy but delightful time burying and digging up the dinos.

They said it was a bit like being a pirate finding hidden treasure.

Water and sand went everywhere and we realised that placing the tub next to the board displaying our treasure maps …

wasn’t a smart idea!! … splish, splosh, splash!

This naturally led onto a discussion about archeology and fossils, so the next step was for the children to create their own fossils.

They used a variety of objects …

like shells, bones, coral and plastic dinosaurs.

They pressed them into clay …

leaving nice deep imprints …

then we mixed up the plaster and scooped it on top.

By the end of the session the plaster was dry enough to be taken off.

Uncovering the fossils was very exciting!

and ta-raa their very own ‘fossils’ to take home!

In the words of our friend Aiden to his Mum at the end of kinder today …

“Hey look what we found today … dinosaur fossils”