3 Ingredient Salt Dough Animal Fossils

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Wondering what in the world to do with your toddler today? Salt dough animal fossils are the perfect solution for you! This 3 ingredient toddler friendly activity will make the cutest salt dough animal fossils you’ve ever seen. It’s so simple. You can easily involve your toddler in each step.

Here’s what’s in this article:

• A Sensory Seekers Delight
• 3 Simple Ingredients
• Making The Dough
• Prepare The Fossils
• Some Creative Fossil Games

A Sensory Seekers Delight

Salt dough animal fossils are perfect for sensory seeker toddlers. Sensory experiences are super important for any toddler, but some our little ones really love sensory exploration.

This salt dough is amazing because it combines multiple textures. Salt is grainy. Flour is fluffy and smooth. Water is…well, it’s wet of course. The mixing process is magical because little hands get to feel each texture individually as they mix the salt, flour and water together. Heck, it was a sensory delight for me, too! Adults have sensory needs, too. Get your hands in there, mama!

3 Simple Ingredients

This activity is so incredibly easy. You just need 3 simple ingredients, as well as some everyday kitchen items.

Here’s what you’ll need:

• 1 cup salt
• 2 cups flour
• About 3/4 cup warm water
• Large mixing bowl
• Measuring cups
• Baking sheet
• Small animal figures or dinosaur figures

You probably already have all of the above items without making a trip to the supermarket, so this is an easy solution to the always looming question, “What are we going to do today?” If you’re on the lookout for a great set of small animal figures, I love THIS ONE.

Making The Dough

Let’s make some salt dough! It really couldn’t get easier than this.

Before you begin making the dough, reheat the oven to 250F.

Put 2 cups of flour and 1 cup salt into a large mixing bowl. Toddlers can absolutely help with this part. My 2 year old loved measuring out the flour and water and pouring them into a large mixing bowl. He was playing with the dry mix before I could even add water.

Add 1/2 cup warm water to start. Using your hands (and your toddlers hands, of course), mix the water with the dry ingredients. The mix will probably be very crumbly. Add 1/4 cup more warm water and mix well. This might be enough to create a smooth texture that is easy to roll, press, and form the fossils. If you need more warm water, just add a splash at a time until you reach a smooth, easy to manipulate dough consistency.

Prepare The Fossils

Now that we’ve got our dough sorted, it’s time to prepare our salt dough animal fossils!

Divide the dough into smaller chunks, rolling them into balls. Put the balls on a baking sheet and press down firmly with your hand to form a flat disk. Your child will likely love the disk-smashing part. Mine sure did!

Take your animal or dinosaur figurines and press them firmly into the dough to make an imprint. To be completely honest, my son went wild with this step. He loved smashing the animals into the dough, demolishing the disks. His turned out a bit more artistic. I rescued some disks before he could get to them because I wanted to have some fossils with actual animal imprints, but his were just as beautiful as the ones I prepared.

Put the salt dough animal fossils in the oven and bake at 250F for 1-2 hours. Mine were completely dry and hardened after 90 minutes, but I could have kept them in the entire 2 hours without any issues. If you’re unsure, the full 2 hours will do fine.

Some Creative Fossil Games

Congratulations! You survived the fossil making process with a toddler. Are you cleaning up a kitchen covered in flour like me? How exactly does flour get between toes? Asking for a friend.

Now we get to play!

Here are some fun ideas:

• Take your fossils outside and have a scavenger hunt
• Take your animal or dinosaur figures and have your child match the fossil to the correct figure
• Paint the fossils in bright colors
• Go on a fossil digging expedition by burying the fossils in dirt and digging them back up
• Create your own games and imaginative play!

You can probably come up with some really amazing ways to incorporate these salt dough animal fossils into your child’s play world. I’d love to hear your ideas! Comment below with your creative play ideas so others can be inspired, too.

Hope you loved today’s activity!

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