Archaeologists Dig for Clues

This week in history lessons we learned about history and archaeology.  We wrapped up with a dig.  First we reviewed some books that we'd read earlier in the week.





I'd buried a bunch of plastic dinosaurs and snakes in the sandbox lastnight (stumbling around in the dark).  We marked off quadrants and each child had a clipboard with a log of the quadrants to mark their finds.  Also paintbrushes and sifters.

First they dug:



Then they logged (I helped John):



Then they dug some more (they loved it so much that they begged me to bury everything again so they could keep digging):



I thought as I watched them that a great addition to this activity would be to find a real dig to visit, or to make the burial items more like clues (think of a civilization--even a made-up one--and list items that would give clues to it.  you could turn it into a huge treasure hunt mystery.  my kids would eat it up based on their enjoyment of this morning's activity. perhaps I'll do this when we cycle back this way in a few years).  We may go to the children's museum tomorrow where they have dinosaur bones buried in a mock-dig.