Dino Dig

This Activity will take two meetings to complete.  

 Before the meeting: 

1. Gather all materials and lay out items on a newspaper-covered work surface. 

During the first meeting: 

1. Ask Cub Scouts to combine the 3 cups cornstarch and 1 ½ cups water together in a big bowl to make oobleck. If the mixture is too watery, add more cornstarch. The consistency should feel like quicksand, when you apply force, it becomes thicker. 
2. Have Cub Scouts pour the mixture into the container. Tell them to bury the dinosaurs in the mixture so that you can’t see them. The bones may not want to stay buried, so they may have to push them back down into the mixture. It’s OK if a couple of them are poking out of the mixture, but have Cub Scouts make sure that most of them are totally submerged in the oobleck. 
3. Set the containers aside to dry in a place where they can stay until the next den meeting. 

During the second meeting: 

1. Cover your workspace with newspaper. 
2. Bring containers and put them down on top of the newspaper. This is going to get messy. Corn starch dust will be everywhere.
3. For safety, Cub Scouts must wear safety glasses while working in case any pieces or dust go flying. 
4. Ask Cub Scouts to carefully turn the container upside down onto the work surface. Remove the container, and the dig should slide right out. 
5. The dig may crumble a bit. If it doesn’t, Cub Scouts can use the hammer and very gently tap on it to start breaking it up. 
6. Tell Cub Scouts to brush and dig their way through the dinosaur dig. When they see a bone, they should gently excavate around it, removing the cornstarch debris with a brush. Soon, they’ll find their dinosaur bones! 

Tip: Consider holding the second meeting outside so that cleanup will be easier.