Fossils for Kids

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Because Mavi is fascinated with dinosaurs and fossils, I always make it a habit to include it yearly in our homeschool activities. If you are interested learning about our previous dinosaurs and fossils lessons here are the following links:

For this year, I focused on fossils alone as I wanted Mavi to understand how they became so relevant in defining history.

Fossils by definition are organisms or objects that indicates former presence of an organism which has been preserved in any natural deposit in or on the earth’s crust. We examined the fossils we have on hand: Safari Toob Fossil replicas, coral fossils and the animal impressions that we made.

There are different types of fossils. One famous type of fossil is the preservation of insects found in resins, now known as amber. Another are moulds of animals or plants; trails or tracks of animals and dinosaurs from thousands of years ago.

With this we made our own animal impressions using Safari Toob animal figures. They all end up so pretty! Making animal impressions in a clay is one of the easiest way to recreate a fossil. Another is embedding an animal or object in an ice or clay similar to an amber.

These are coral fossils which we got from our latest trip to the Philippines. Mavi described the difference between moulds and cast fossils like those of coral cavities that were filled with mineral substance.

Then we examined each of our Safari Toob Ancient Fossils and identify them. (Source: Safari Toob Fossils)

Eurypterid. A sea scorpion called Mixopterus was discovered in Norway. They ranged from 5 inches to over 7 feet long.
Fossilized Fish. This is a Diplomystus specimen, typical of a surface feeding fish. The Green River limestone deposits in Wyoming, USA have beautifully preserved all the fine details of these fossils.
Dinosaur Skin. This is a famous fossil “mummies” of a duck-billed Hadrosaur which became entombed in a sandstone after its death. The real one can be found in North Dakota, USA.
Tyrannosaurus Rex Tooth. This tooth was found in Montana, USA. The T-Rex, one of the greatest predator possess the largest single teeth of any dinosaur. They used these double edge, serrated blades to slice off huge pieces of flesh.
Dinosaur Foot. The discoveries of dinosaur tracks and footprints are grouped into similar types and they are given generic names. Anchisauripus prints were from a small plant-eater found in the state of Connecticut, USA.
Velociraptor Claw. Velociraptor are very efficient hunter because of these large sickle-shaped claws that grow on each hind foot. This claw was found in Mongolia in Central Asia.
Ammonite. This is an ancient mollusc with a spiral shell. These marine animals existed for more than 135 million years. This species is known as Peltoceratoides and was discovered in Russia.
Giant Crabs. Did you know that crabs evolved from lobsters during the Jurassic Period? This original specimens from Washington state, USA are among the finest preserved crab fossils having been buried in sand, soon after their deaths.
Trilobite. They are one of the most important groups of early animals and their unusual appearance and age, make them appealing to fossil collectors worldwide. They first appeared in the early Cambrian period and become extinct in the Permian, 320 million years ago.
Fossilized Frog. This fossilized species of frog is fully articulated and possibly the ancestor of the modern spade foot toad. This was collected in Wyoming, USA.