Our new ELI this month is an addition to our ELI Early years activities 'Mud, Mud, glorious mud*; make your own bricks'.

This activity involves carefully measuring ingredients to make a pliable mud. The mud is then baked in the sun or in an oven to make bricks. The bricks can then be painted and/or used to make structures.

Related activities can be found in Engineering and Industrial geology in our Earth Materials category, or you can search for our 'Make your own . . .' series.

* from Flanders and Swan ‘The Hippopotamus Song’

   

Today, we are continuing to look at building stones with 'Building Stones 3 – Sedimentary rocks; how do the sedimentary rocks used for building stones differ?'.

A small group activity using photographs of sedimentary rocks used as building stones or for ornamental purposes. This activity follows ‘Building Stones 1’ and is intended for pupils to deepen their understanding of sedimentary rocks. A table showing how the series of Earthlearningidea building stone activities link together is given on the final page.

Related activities can be found in our Earth Materials category - Rocks.

   

Have you ever wondered about all the beautiful building stones you see when you walk round most towns and cities? Try this ELI - 'Building Stones 1– a resource for several Earthlearningidea activities; use a key to identify many different attractive-looking rocks'.

A small group activity in the identification of a wide range of rock types, using natural-scale photographs of rocks used as building stones or for ornamental purposes. The sheets of photographs are intended for use as the basis for several further activities.

Related activities can be found in our Rocks section of the Earth Materials category.

   

Today we are continuing to look at footprints with 'The meeting of the dinosaurs - 100 million years ago; the evidence given by dinosaur footprints'.

Fossil tracks, such as footprints, can provide a great deal of evidence about the environment at the time when they were made and about how the animals lived and moved.

Related activities can be found in our Dinosaurs, Evolution of Life category.

   

Our new ELI today is 'What were the animals doing? Interpreting footprints and other marks in the sand.'

Footprints and other traces of animals, found as fossils, can tell us a great deal about what the animals were doing at the time. Pupils make footprints in sand for others to interpret. This is great fun!

Related activities can be found in our Evolution of Life category - dinosaurs.