Fizzing Fossil Dinosaur Eggs – Digging Up Dinosaurs by Aliki

Dinosaurs are our hot topic of the moment – I probably know more that I ever wanted to know about an Aptosaurus, Iguanadon and a Paracelapharus (I have no idea whether that is the spelling or not!), and with this month’s Virtual Book Club for Kids author being Aliki, and with one of them Digging Up Dinosaurs an explanation of fossils we thought it was perfect for us.

The book Digging Up Dinosaurs (affiliate link),  is a Level 2 Reader Science book aimed at 5 – 8 year olds with fantastic facts and illustrated in a mix of pictures and comic book style images explaining process it was perfectly aimed at reading with J who is about to enter year 1 and is mad about all things dinosaur as well as discovering about the world around him. To connect with the book I decided it was time to make some dinosaur eggs and excavate the fossil dinosaurs from the middle of them.

Why not check out some of these other fun ways to make fossils with kids!

To make fizzing fossil dinosaur eggs you will need

Baking Soda (Bicarbonate Soda)
Water
Black Food Colouring
Baking Tray
Small plastic dinosaurs (if you can get small plastic dinosaur skeletons even better)
Vinegar
Syringe or dropper

Fizzing fossil Dinosaur Eggs

In a large bowl add your baking soda and some of the black food colouring – adding the food colouring will give the eggs a more stone like appearance. Gradually add the water you want to form a mouldable paste.

With the small dinosaur mould the paste around the outside of the dinosaur and form into an egg like shape and then put on a baking tray to dry over night – as they dry the egg will harden and lighten in colour as well.

We then set about excavating our fossils from the eggs – in the book Aliki talks about the different people involved in fossil finding and this gave us an opportunity to talk about some of these jobs. To excavate the eggs we used a syringe filled with vinegar. The vinegar reacts with the baking soda fizzing up.

The kids filled up the syringes and then slowly squirted the vinegar over the eggs and watched as they fizzed. J decided to help the excavation with a spoon to split the eggs open and T using a stick to drill a hole to put the vinegar into to fizz from the inside as well as on the outside.

As the eggs reacted the dinosaurs become visible and they were cleaned and then added to our dinosaur box.

More Dinosaur Inspired Books for Toddlers and Preschoolers

Dinosaur Books to Read Aloud and Together with Toddlers and Preschoolers

More Fossil Activities for Kids

Why not try making 3 different sort of fossils with your kids

Make cast fossils, mould fossils or trace fossils with our 3 simple activities for kids.