This super quick and easy tutorial will show you how to make Rainbow Colored Spring Surprises. These fun little excavations are inexpensive, easy to make, and are a huge hit with kids!
Excavating Adventures Pro Tip: These Rainbow Colored Spring Surprises make great items to hide for Easter Egg Hunts. They also make awesome little activities to do at birthday parties!
Materials:
- Colored sand - Regular sand will work just fine if that is all you have available.
- Plaster of Paris
- Measuring cups
- Water
- Mixing bowl
- Spoon
- Ice cube tray
- Colored foil squares. These are sold online as foil candy wrappers and come in assortments of several pretty colors. You can also use regular aluminum foil to make shiny silver surprises!
- Tumbled stones. You can easily find these online as well. Tumbled stones are often very colorful and beautiful. Many assortments purchased online will also come with an identification chart.
- Excavation tools - Safety goggles, small brush, magnifying glass, and a chisel, nail, wooden dowel or some other tool to use to excavate.
Excavating Adventures Pro Tip: Soften the Rainbow Colored Spring Surprises with a little water if it is difficult for your young Excavating Adventurer to dig.
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Instructions:
- Place a tumbled stone in each section of the ice cube tray.
- Dry mix one cup of sand with 1/3 cup of Plaster of Paris. Increase the recipe as needed to fill your ice cube tray at a three parts sand to one part Plaster of Paris ratio.
- Add 1/3 cup of water and mix until you have a pancake like consistency.
- Pour the mixture over the tumbled stones and fill each section of the ice cube tray.
- Gently shake the ice cube tray to settled the mixture down around the tumbled stones.
- Allow to dry for 48 hours. Place in front of a fan if possible.
- Once the excavations are completely dry, carefully turn the ice cube tray over and place on a surface. You do not want the excavations to fall out as they make break.
- Gently tap the bottom of the ice cube tray until all of the excavations have came out.
- Wrap each excavation with a sheet or two of the colored foil. You now have an assortment of Rainbow Colored Spring Surprises!
- Find an area that can get a little messy and be easily cleaned up. Distribute the Rainbow Colored Spring Surprises, safety goggles and excavation tools and let your Excavating Adventurer dive!
Excavating Adventures Pro Tip: This is a fun and easy little excavation activity that is very inexpensive. Rainbow Spring Surprises make great rewards to distribute for completion of chores and good behavior!
I hope you enjoyed this super quick tutorial and had fun creating your own Rainbow Colored Spring Surprises to investigate and explore. These excavations are very easy to make and a lot of fun!
Excavating Adventures Pro Tip: Use this activity to create some excitement around discussions or lessons about rocks, minerals, gemstones, geology, and more! The identification chart is a great resource for your Excavating Adventurer to use to start identifying and learning about the rocks they discovered. There are also many online resources that can be used to identify the rocks.
If you love rocks, geology, and excavating as much as we do, be sure to check out our Excavating Adventures monthly subscription by clicking the link below and get an awesome new excavation delivered each month loaded with rocks, minerals, gemstones, fossils, and more!
Happy Excavating!
