Fossils

This was our first lesson-related project. We talked about dinosaurs, watched informative videos, went to the museum, and made fossils. It was a lot of fun, and really easy. I imagine we’ll make this dough and use it for something else in the future.

Ideas for future use of this recipe: Christmas ornaments, hand print wall-hangings, first pottery attempts, leaf prints maybe.

Things you need:

1 box baking soda (about 2 cups)
1 cup cornstarch
11/2 cups water
Sauce pan
Bowl
Spoon
Plastic wrap (optional)
Waxed Paper (optional)
Dinosaurs

How we did it:

Make your dough - Mix the baking soda, cornstarch and water in a saucepan and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until it is too thick to stir with a spoon. Seriously, constantly. This only takes 10 minutes or so. When it starts to thicken, it will get to the right consistency very quickly.

Let it cool - Cool in a bowl until the dough is cool enough to touch. Knead it for about 5 minutes, or until smooth. Keep any dough you’re not using wrapped in plastic.

Paper your table - I recommend taping down some waxed paper before you give the dough to little hands. It is pretty easy to clean up, so you don’t absolutely have to, but it does make clean-up faster, and give you an easy way to move your finished projects.






Get prehistoric - We delved out approximately equal portions of dough and put a basket of plastic dinosaurs in the middle of the table. This clay is good for lots of things, but we were just finishing up a week of dinosaur lessons.
The kids stamped skin patterns, faces and feet. Then, they rolled their dough up and made snowmen and dinosaur armor. Finally, they made fossils again and we let them dry on the kitchen counter. They take 1-2 days to dry, depending on how thick it is, and it can be painted with Tempera or acrylic paints.

Tips - You probably shouldn’t let these dry entirely on the waxed paper. The paper will hold the moisture in on the bottom. Also, you’ve got probably about a half hour between the dough reaching a tolerable “warm” temperature and when it will start to dry enough to be chunky and difficult to reform. And you should know before you start: this stuff is super easy to wash off. It will feel weird and grainy on your hands, but it comes right off without any trouble.