1. Learn about Mary Anning through books and links below.
2. Print out a picture of Mary Anning selling fossils.
3. Draw her in front of an empty table. Color the figure and the outside of the table but leave white spaces for the fossil prints.
4. Make your foam printing plates by drawing with force into foam (styrofoam or craft foam in our case). Make sure your child pushes hard so the line go deep into the foam.
5. We glued cardboard to the back of our printing blocks. This worked for the prints sometimes, but not others. We recommend trying first to not glue cardboard on the back but instead use a metal spoon to push down on the foam piece.
6. Use a flat surface to place the ink on and roll it out using a rubber roller.
7. For the blue sky, we drew ammonites (fossils that Mary Anning discovered).
8. For the fossils on the table, we drew various prehistoric creatures, including the fossils that Mary Anning found of Ichthyosaurus and Plesiosaurus.
9. Print the fossils on the tables in the image.
Children's Books & Links