Fossil Dig Camp Activity Pack

Fossil Dig Camp sends kids aged 6 to 9 to an imaginary sandstone camp across 48 printable pages of dinosaur activities. Four dinosaur partners share the work: Pippa looks closely, Rocco counts, Fern keeps records and Flint tells the stories. A child joins them for five stages of eight tasks.

Five camp stages

1. Pack the Camp: label the tools, count equipment rows, continue a supply pattern, a maze to the meeting spot, an explorer routine in four steps and a search mat to count. Then a camp scene to color and a camp badge with a tool and the child’s initials.
2. Search the Layers: circle the mark nearest the top of a four-layer dig wall, draw finds into row and column squares, spot four changes between two records, tally fossil pictures, another maze and a five-word search. It finishes with a dig scene and a fossil mark to invent.
3. Observe the Finds: connect fossils to labels and to simple shapes like a spiral or a three-toed print, compare groups with >, < or =, continue fossil strings and decode a number-to-shape key. The magnifier station is the coloring page, and a close-up sketch with one noticed detail is the drawing task.
4. Sort the Collection: write T for tool or F for picture find, add collection totals, count on to fill label numbers, check two specimen sheets for changes and place four items on a display tray grid, then color the sorting tent and write a label for an invented find.
5. Share Discoveries: a word search for sharing words, a camp emblem finished by mirroring circles across a line, a T and F exhibition list, final sums, the mark nearest the bottom of the wall, one more comparison, the sharing circle to color and a discovery story.

What kind of looking it trains

Most tasks are about spotting position, shape and quantity: which layer, which cell, which picture changed, how many of each. Spiral shells, a tooth, a leaf print and a three-toed footprint are the same few pictures throughout, in counting trays, layer walls and sorting lists. Word searches only run right or down.

Pencil and crayons are the whole kit. The guide says nothing needs cutting or assembling and no digging happens, and the four back pages, a session planner, a fossil album of four invented finds, a field report and the certificate, give the book a finish once the 40 tasks are done.

Questions

Do the layer puzzles teach how old fossils are?

No. The guide says the layer tasks are about which mark sits nearest the top or bottom of an imaginary wall, not geological age.

Are the dinosaurs drawn as real species?

They are fictional cartoon partners, and the guide notes they are not anatomical reference pictures. Shells, leaf prints and footprints in the book are not all meant as dinosaur remains either.