Plaster casts...but for feet this time, not arms

Making casts of footprints...

Jake has broken his arm twice within the past four months so he's been 'plastered' for most of the summer. But that gave us an idea and we're going to make plaster casts of footprints

You'll need plaster of Paris and hair spray

One part of water to two parts of plaster.
We used a cup.

Find some tracks or a real live beastie and a
nice clean patch of dirt that you've
 raked over. The softer the better.
Dr Watson was keen to help. He's a real softie.

Nice and still, thank you, Watson!

Now off the garden, please!

A perfect pawprint!

Spray it with hair spray - not too close or the footprint
will get blown away. We did that with our first pawprint and had to start again.
Let the hairspray dry. This will help stop dirt
sticking to the plaster.

Make a cardboard circle out of a strip of cardboard.

We cut ours in half as it was very tall.

We mixed up the plaster...

Tipped it into something easier to manage.

And carefully dribbled it into the mould.
Don't woosh it all in at once right on
top of the pawprint or it will end up as one
big blob. 

Try and let it flow across from one side.

Jake wanted to make a dino track so he used three fingers and
pressed them upside down into the dirt.
He could have hijacked a chicken instead ;o).

Then he used hairspray and did the same as before.

Now wait overnight until it's nice and hard...

Now gently remove the extra soft dirt from underneath the plaster.

Peel off the cardboard - which has probably gone soggy overnight. 

And wash the mould under a running tap of cold water.

Dr Watson liked his pawprint! You can just make out the big pad 
at the bottom and the four little toes above it. It's clearer up close.

The dino footprint came out well. 

(And yes, it was early in the morning when we took this picture. 
Before school, which starts at 08:00 in Denmark. 
Before breakfast even. And certainly before Jake combed his hair. 
We couldn't wait to race outside and see if the casts had worked :o).

If you've got a dinosaur toy, you could try using that. 

A rip-roaring good time with dinos...

Childhood fads come and go... but funnily enough, though they died out some 65 million years ago, dinosaurs are here to stay. 

Why is that? Because the tails make good handles, so do the necks and you can pick them up cheap at flea markets with no vital bits missing? Or maybe because once you’ve learnt a few long dino names, you can astound anyone, anywhere, anytime by dropping a pachycephalosaurus into the conversation. Like its footprint, it leaves a deep impression. It certainly beats memorising the names, eating habits and favourite haunts of the latest boy band only to watch it sink without trace in the primeval soup of one-hit wonders two months later.

Perhaps the main reason why dinosaurs will always be around is that grandparents have a fond affinity for these wrinkly-bottomed giants and like buying them as presents – feeling like spring chickens by comparison. Luckily grandchildren still find plastic mastodon toys as appealing as their equally lovable greying relatives – both treasures from a bygone age with masticating dentures and creaky joints who predate iPads and podcasts.

From a youngster’s point of view, at playschool, very little can match a T-Rex. Plonk one on the table and it’s goodbye Kitty! And for a kid whose brain won’t fully develop until the age of 25, it’s reassuring that animals generally believed to have a brain the size of a walnut – on a par with Winnie the Pooh – survived for 165 million years before becoming extinct. 

Whatever the case, kids love dino exhibitions because for one mammoth moment, their parents remember what it’s like to be little – knee-high, in fact – with a continuous crick in their neck from looking up while constantly at the risk of being stomped under foot. And despite the teeth, dinos are relatively safe. Buy a child a cute fluffy pocket pet, and before long she’ll start whining: ‘I want a puppy’. If she whines: ‘Daddy can I have a stegosaurus?’ it isn’t a problem. 

So why not go dino hunting? Depending on the age of your offspring, warm up with Ice Age, Barney or Jurassic Park, fast forwarding past the bits where the good guy gets chomped in half (a bit of a waist?), and check out the website of London’s Natural History Museum which has fun dino facts and games to keep kids amused. 

Then off you go! 

Now we've got our cable back... we'll be making tracks ourselves as soon as Jake gets back from school. 

but in the meantime, here are photos of our trip to the Geo Centre...

Here's looking at you, kid!

Fossils galore!

Buried in the chalk.

Plenty to see...

and plenty to learn...

!

Dramatic backrops outdoors...

and indoors too...                                     

Moving fish under thick glass that you can walk on.

Quick, there goes one, now...

A workshop where you can make your own creatures.
We didn't make these. They are resident beasties.  

Get stuck in...

Searching for tiny fossil shells.

See them up close.

Then have a good scramble with the other beasties

Here's Nadia, our friendly nature guide
at the entrance to the new exhibition.

Casts of real tracks found on Greenland.

Up close.

However did they find them under all the snow???

And where, exactly?

They ran this way...

You can see the photos of how they dug them up...

...very carefully.

And transported them over the ice. 

This looks like a ribcage, perhaps?

Or a backbone perhaps?

Here is the dented tray they used as a
sledge to move the heavy fossils. 

More equipment used for the tough stuff.

The expedition team mascot!

The tracks being removed...

...and put together like a jigsaw puzzle.

And in another room, you'll find this friendly fellow, who looks a little like a crocodile.

Get me some food, mate, and make it snappy!

An ocean of facts, figures and 3-D footage that together
make the bones come alive.

And a filmset where you can see yourself interact with the dinos on big screens.
It didn't come out on our camera because of the flashlighting but it was cool 'in real life'...even a little scary!