Prehistoric Times

We have a new addition to our brood! Good news-doesn’t require feeding of any sort.  Bad news-I already broke its neck.  Announcing . . . Woolly-the Woolly Mammoth! 

Isn’t he cute?  This was a very cool “homeschool style” project for The Boy.  He just completed a science unit on Living Things of the Past and fossils.  We He became fascinated with the Woolly Mammoth so he completed an animal report with pictures and tons of facts.
 To culminate the project, we ordered this really amazing Prehistoric Skeleton Excavation Kit by Kidz Labs off of Amazon.

 It comes with a brush, digging tool, and a plaster block encasing the all the pieces of the skeleton. I wish I had shot some pictures of the process.  It took two whole days to uncover the entire skeleton!  He started off slowly and meticulously, chipping away at the packed sand like a real-life Indiana Jones. He then moved onto “testing” it out under the faucet.  And finally, The Boy was banging away at the last few clumps like a maniac with the enclosed digging-hammer-like tool. After uncovering all the pieces, he spent time putting them together.  It comes with some wax to position the joints and a cardboard display with lots of facts printed on the reverse. This really brought the project to life and inspired more research-did you know that those ginormous tusks were used like snow plows? Woolly mammoths also survived only on vegetation-such a large animal eating only salad?  The Boy was most fascinated to learn that an actual ice-preserved carcass was found in Siberia.  Cool stuff and that’s what I call learning at its best.  Oh and the cervical fracture? fixed it- because I am soooo Martha like that. Woolly just needed a pin in his neck and some wax-good as new prehistoric!

Please note: This is not a paid endorsement. I just think it is a fun project.