Do you have a budding paleontologist? Or a kid who loves picking up rocks and seashells? Digging for treasure is exciting for kids AND adults. This discovery bin full of fossils, rocks, and seashells is a super fun addition to an Earth science unit.  

We’ve been learning a lot about dinosaurs, so it was the perfect opportunity to create this fun bin and talk about the differences between fossils, rocks, and seashells. How are they different? How are they alike? How are they the same? 

Not only did we sort out the different objects by classifying them, we also sorted them out by characteristics such as smooth or bumpy. Then, we moved on to counting how many of each we had and made a graph. Finally, we used her Lakeshore Learning Scale to compare and weigh our objects. 

If you don’t want to use the real thing or buy plastic replicas, I created a few printable sheets for you. Just print on thick cardstock, cut out the fossils, rocks, and shells to bury. For extra durability for repeated use, I recommend laminating.

You can use these sheets to practice phonics, subitizing, or sight words. Just print out two copies of each objects page. Keep one page intact while you cut the other matching objects out. Then, after laminating, use a dry erase marker to add numbers, words, or letters. For example, on the intact page you could write uppercase letters and on the cut-outs, write lowercase letters they can match to the sheet once they’ve dug up the object.