Salt Dough Recipe

This Salt Dough is great for making fossils, ornaments, handprints, or any other project where you need to have a hardened finished product. 

Salt Dough
1 cup salt
2 cups flour
1 cup lukewarm water
Optional food coloring

 

Combine flour and salt.  Add water and stir until dough forms.  Knead for about 5 minutes, until it is smooth. 

Make your creations!  Bake for 2-3 hours at 200 degrees F. 

Dinosaur Activities

Outing:
-Visit a museum nearby that has even a few dinosaur exhibits. 

 

Activity/Project:
-Use play dough or clay and push various items into the dough to create fossils. 
-Make a simple Salt Dough (recipe below),  roll out small circles about 1/4-1/2 inch thick, make imprints  of dinosuar bodies, feet and anything else you'd like to make fossils of.  Bake to harden.  Either play with the fossils alone, or go on a dinosaur dig!  You can bury them outdoors in a sandbox, or make a small indoor box by using a sturdy plastic bin, filling it with sand and burying them.  (Be sure to put a shower curtain or other piece of plastic or even newspapers underneath your sand bin!)  Let your child dig for the fossils with small shovels and even use a paintbrush to sweep them off!  You can find lots of great dinosaurs to use for the imprints and to play with at a dollar store, Wal-Mart or even craft stores.  There are also some great options online, such as Sarafi Ltd.'s Dinosaur Toobs, or their Dinosaur Skulls Toob.
-use a large piece of cardboard or cork-board (something that won't get broken too easily).  Decorate it with your kids to depict a "dinosaur" scene…mountains, trees, plants, a volcano, etc.  Then, use toy dinosaurs and play on the mat that you've created.

 

Salt Dough
1 cup salt
2 cups flour
1 cup lukewarm water
Optional food coloring

 

Combine flour and salt.  Add water and stir until dough forms.  Knead for about 5 minutes, until it is smooth. 

Make your creations (great for fossils, ornaments, handprints, etc!).  Bake for 2-3 hours at 200 degrees F. 

Dinosaur Book List

Next up…Dinosaurs!  This one is so much fun!  What has amazed me the most is how incredibly absorbent children's minds are.  We did a section on dinosaurs awhile back and are gearing up to cover them again in the coming week and my little guy STILL remembers the names of most of the toy dinosaurs we have!   So, here's a list of some of our favorite dinosaur books to help you get ready:

 

"The Berenstain Bears' Dinosaur Dig" Jan & Mike Berenstain
"Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs" Byron Barton
"Dinosaur, Roar" Paul Stickland
"Dinosaur, More: A First Book of Dinosaur Facts" Henrietta Stickland
"How Do Dinosaurs Eat Their Food?" Jane Yolen
"How Do Dinosaurs Say Good Night?" Jane Yolen
"Curious George and the Dinosaur" Margaret Rey
"The Great Big Book of Dinosaurs" Rupert Matthews

Construction & Tools Activities

Outing:
-Take a walk or drive past a home or building under construction near you.  Go by repeatedly to observe the progress being made!  Point out building, home and even road construction while you are out and about. 
-Work on naming all of the different types of construction vehicles that you see while you are out and about.

 

Activity/Project:
-Use some construction vehicles or even a shovel to dig in the dirt, sand or snow and build some creative structures.
-Cut out different color and size shapes (i.e. several sizes of squares, several of each size) and let your little one practice "building" by gluing them together on a piece of paper in creative ways. 
-Get out the blocks or legos and build different types of structures.  Let them pretend to hammer and saw the blocks.