Try these fun ideas for creating your own fossil dig kit and excavation activity at home or in the classroom!

Let’s face it — kids love to dig!

Whether it’s digging a hole at the beach or shoveling their way around the backyard, they will spend hours looking for buried treasures.

And if you have a junior paleontologist at home, you know how much they’ll LOVE to dig for bones!

How to Make Your Own Fossil Dig

Both of our kids loved the idea of digging for dinosaur bones — in fact, one summer we were able to experience a fossil excavation on a trip to Mammoth Site in South Dakota (awesome experience if you ever have the chance!)

There were some super AWESOME ideas shared for creating your own Dinosaur Dig on the Discover & Explore linky last week. Your kids will love to dig into these activities and learn more about dinosaurs and fossils.

We’ve included links to each of the variations of fossil dig ideas along with affiliate links for recommended books and items to have one hand for the best dino dig ever!

Dino Dig in Ice

Dinosaur Ice Dig

Both Happy Hooligans and Little Bins for Little Hands shared how to freeze dinosaurs and then use water & salt to ‘dig’ out the reptiles. I love this idea since it exposes your kids to science (salt melting ice) and all you’ll need is a set of dinosaur figures.

Make Fossils in Clay

Life with Moore Babies created a really cool clay for their dino dig. They also created fossils on the top of the clay so the kids could examine them before digging.

This is like many of the traditional dinosaur dig kits so if you’re looking for a preset one (which makes a great birthday gift), try this Large Dinosaur Excavation Kit.

Create an Excavation Bin

Munchkin and Bean used baking soda to replicate an Arctic dig site — once frozen, the baking soda mixture looks like snow & ice! These Dinosaur Skeleton Toy Figures are perfect to put in your excavation site!

Cover Dinos in Goo

Crayon Box Chronicles decided to cover their dinosaurs in goo for some great sticky adventures! You can replicate this activity with these Plastic Dinosaur Figures.

Finding Fossils in Sand

Digging in sand has never been so much fun! Going Blue, Too not only created a fun dinosaur dig with sand for the kids but they also give some wonderful details about how to expand the learning for a dino dig! This Glow-in-the-Dark Dino Dig kit is similar and comes with a great set of dig tools for kids!

And of course, pairing your dino dig with a book is always recommended! Try one of these great titles:

The Berenstain Bears’ Dinosaur Dig

Digging Up Dinosaurs (Let’s-Read-and-Find-Out Science 2)

Curious About Fossils

Thanks to everyone who linked up last week! This week’s theme is Creating with Nature so be sure to share & visit for some cool ideas.

5 Ways to Make Your Own Dinosaur Fossil Dig