{"id":13356,"date":"2019-03-28T20:28:15","date_gmt":"2019-03-29T03:28:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/kids\/?p=13356"},"modified":"2019-03-28T20:28:15","modified_gmt":"2019-03-29T03:28:15","slug":"preschool-steam-salt-dough-dinosaur-fossils","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/kids\/2019\/preschool-steam-salt-dough-dinosaur-fossils\/","title":{"rendered":"Preschool STEAM ~ Salt Dough Dinosaur Fossils"},"content":{"rendered":"

Preschool STEAM (for children ages 2-6) is all about\u00a0having fun with science, technology,\u00a0math and art!\u00a0 There is no right or wrong way for children to experiment \u2013 the fun and learning comes from the doing!\u00a0 Early childhood research shows us that little hands and minds learn best when at play.<\/p>\n

For our\u00a0March 2019 STEAM adventure, we focused on making salt dough dinosaur fossils!<\/p>\n

\n

Materials Needed:<\/h1>\n

Flour<\/p>\n

Salt<\/p>\n

Water<\/p>\n

Caramel color food coloring (optional)<\/p>\n

Measuring cups<\/p>\n

Plastic or regular mixing bowls<\/p>\n

Dowels or small rolling pins<\/p>\n

Round cookie cutters or mason jar tops<\/p>\n

Miniature dinosaurs<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n

The Project<\/h1>\n

\"\"Credit:\u00a0\u00a0Kiwi Co. Corner<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"\u00a0\"\" \"\"<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. We mixed 1 cup of flour with 1\/2 cup of salt\u00a0in a plastic mixing bowl.<\/li>\n
  2. We then\u00a0poured 1\/2 cup of water into the mix and stirred until we had\u00a0a dough-like consistency.<\/li>\n
  3. Some of the kids added caramel color food coloring to the mixture to\u00a0turn the dough brown.<\/li>\n
  4. We formed\u00a0the dough into a ball, dusted it with flour, and kneaded it for several minutes.<\/li>\n
  5. We then rolled the\u00a0dough out to about \u00bd-inch to \u00bc-inch thickness using dowels.<\/li>\n
  6. Using our mason jar lids, we cut circles out of the dough.<\/li>\n
  7. We then pressed the\u00a0miniature dinosaurs into the dough and\u00a0carefully removed them.<\/li>\n
  8. The dinosaur fossils can be air dried or baked in the\u00a0oven at 200 degrees for 2-3 hours.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    \"\"\u00a0\"\"\u00a0\"\"<\/p>\n

    \n

    The Science Behind It<\/h1>\n

    Fossils are how we know anything about living things from the ancient world, like dinosaurs. Fossils form under just the right conditions, when a dead animal or plant is encased in dirt and sediment. Over hundreds of years, the living thing\u2019s organic matter is traced or replaced by minerals. The fossil rock that remains can last for hundreds of millions of years, longer than any tissue from the living thing itself.<\/p>\n

    The only trouble with fossils is that they need the right conditions to form, and they take a looong time to make. But what if you could make your own fossils in under two hours? Try out this project to find out how!<\/p>\n

    Paleontologists (scientists who study ancient life like dinosaurs) call the kind of fossil you just made a mold fossil. That\u2019s because the sediment (the dough) formed a mold around the dinosaur body, preserving an imprint of it.<\/p>\n

    There are lots of other kinds of fossils, though. The dinosaur bones you see arranged and built into skeletons are permineralized fossils. Compression fossils turn plants like ferns into a thin film on a rock. The next time you visit a natural history museum, see how many different kinds of fossils you can find!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    Credit:\u00a0 Kiwi Co. Corner<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

    \n

    \"\" \"\" \"\" \"\" \"\" \"\" \"\" \"\" \"\"<\/p>\n

    \n

    Our Fossils<\/h1>\n

    \"\"\u00a0\"\"\u00a0\"\"<\/p>\n

    \n

    Join us at Pasadena Central Library for our next STEAM adventure on Monday, April 22 from 10:30-11:30 a.m.\u00a0 The program is held in the patio adjacent to the Children’s Room.\u00a0 Hope to see you there!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Preschool STEAM (for children ages 2-6) is all about\u00a0having fun with science, technology,\u00a0math and art!\u00a0 There is no right or wrong way for children to experiment \u2013 the fun and learning comes from the doing!\u00a0 Early childhood research shows us that little hands and minds learn best when at play. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":13357,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[222],"tags":[16,38,270,271],"class_list":["post-13356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stem","tag-early-literacy","tag-preschool","tag-preschool-science","tag-steam"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/kids\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/10\/files\/sites\/10\/2019\/03\/fossils1.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p71KT0-3tq","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/kids\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/kids\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/kids\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/kids\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/kids\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13356"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"http:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/kids\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13356\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13395,"href":"http:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/kids\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13356\/revisions\/13395"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/kids\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/kids\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/kids\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/kids\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}