Saturday, February 13, 2010

Fun ideas brewing!

I love crafting and I love history so when I get to combine them it's fun all around! I recently came across some new Toob products from Safari LTD and an idea was born in my mind. I am going to set out to make paleontology and archeology discovery kits for HSing for my kiddos. Granted it will probably be a bit until even DS1 is coordinated enough to "dig" and really grasp the idea of what is going on but hey I'll have tons of fun making them and then they will be ready for when he is :)

So here are my plans for now. Later when I can actually get the toobs I will post creation pics of them.

Items:
Small boxes
a large old bowl or a bucket
plaster mix
vaseline
dye to make brown
Thin dowel rod cut into lots of 1 1/2 in pieces
white string
whichever toobs you want to use for your kits
metal cuticle pushers, soft paintbrushes and plastic toothpicks for digging tools

First mix half of your plaster and add in dye to make it turn a brown earth color. Pour the plaster into your box and fill box about an inch and a half to two inches deep. Let this plaster set up. Next arrange your toob items around the plaster. Mix the second half of your plaster and add in dye to turn it brown earth too. Fill the boxes so the plaster is just slightly above the treasures or bones. Get your dowel rods and dip the ends in vaseline so they do not get stuck. place them into the plaster on the outer edge of the box but leave a margin of about 1/4 inch between the edge and the dowels. How many to put in depends on the size of the box but you want at least one in each corner and then one or two in between them. When the plaster has fully set remove the dowels and wash them off. Put each set for each box into it's own baggie and them put each baggie with it's "digsite". Also inside of the baggies you will want to put some string so that the kids can grid off their digsite like the pros would. :o) You can either leave the finished digsites inside the boxes and trim down the sides to "ground" level or you can peel the boxes off the digsite and then store them inside a bag in a box or whatever you have that will keep them safe until used.

When the children use the digsites talk about archeology or paleontology first and explain how a digsite is set up. You should be able to find lots of info about this by searching google. Have the child put the dowels into the post holes and then use the string to make a grid. You can now record on a sheet of paper where you dig and what was found! Just draw the same grid on your paper and you are ready for fun. Have the child use the metal cuticle pusher and toothpicks to dig and the soft paintbrush to begin brushing the "dirt" of the finds as they dig them out.

Here are some pics from the Safari LTD website of the Toobs I plan on using in mine :o)

Ancient Egyptian digsite


Dino bones!


Fossils

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