Rice Krispy Bars + Animal Crackers = A Delicious Fossil Lesson

This is not a teaching blog. It is not going to turn into a teaching blog. However, I came up with a lesson that I was so excited about that I just had to share it. Seriously. I scare myself sometimes.

This week in Science we are covering extinct animal species and fossils. I searched high and low for a "hands-on" activity to do with my kiddos and had half-heartedly committed to doing a chocolate chip cookie excavation in class. The idea was that the chocolate chips are the fossils and they had to excavate them with toothpicks. This seemed all well and good but I just felt like it wasn't realistic enough. I wanted something that would connect them more to the lesson and still involve materials of the edible kind. Because it's fun. And kids like fun.

I did an internet search and found a cookie bar (Rice Krispies treats) project where they had to dig out raisins and m&m's which seemed kind of cool but it still wasn't what I was looking for. Where is the realism in that? You're right, there isn't. Then it hit me: instead of raisins and m&m's, how about animal crackers?? They could dig through the Rice Krispy bars to find the broken up crackers and have to piece them back together to figure out what the species was - just like a paleontoligist would do. A fossil lesson that is not only (sort of) realistic, but also fun and yummy? Sounds like a winning combination to me. This activity was easy on my wallet and the prep work really wasn't that bad - just took some planning....and a little luck.

Let the "baking" begin! I went with the generic Zoo Cookies because they looked much more realistic than the traditional animal crackers..

 

 

 I mixed up the Rice Krispies treats and pressed half the batter into the pan so I could sandwich the broken pieces between two layers.

 

 

I broke up 20 animal crackers and pressed them into the first layer - I kept each animal confined to 1/20th of the pan so that when I cut them out and distributed them, there would (hopefully) be an entire animal fossil for the student to dig out (hence the aforementioned 'luck' component).

 

 

I pressed the rest of the Rice Krispy mixture on top. After cutting the pan of bars into 20 squares I put each one into a plastic baggie for quick distribution in class. I hate wasting time passing things out!

 

 

Digging away! The students were told that they could only use their hands to stabilize their "fossilized rocks" - no pulling the bar apart! They had two toothpicks to use to excavate the fossils.

 

The fossil pieces were piled to the side until digging was complete. At the end they had to piece together their fossil and identify it. Of course I forgot to take a final picture. Fail. They described and illustrated the whole process including the end result in their science notebooks.

 

My kids went absolutely bananas over this! They really got into their roles as paleontologists and made an effort to use their vocabulary words every chance they got. The bonus at the end was that they got to eat the Rice Krispy bars and I passed out the remaining animal crackers for snack.

 

I'd say this activity was a hit and will definitely use it again!