Dig It Up!
What fossils are: bones, teeth, shells, plants and footprints from long ago that turned to rock.
How it plays
Something is buried in the sand. Your child rubs or taps to brush the sand away, bit by bit, until the find is uncovered: an ammonite, a fern, a dinosaur tooth, a bone, a fish, an opal. Ruby Roo says what it is. Each level takes a little more brushing. A switch or a key brushes too. It's in Tiny Steps.
What it's for
What fossils are: bones, teeth, shells, plants and footprints from long ago that turned to rock. There is no score to lose and no way to fail: a wrong move is met with a gentle nudge, and a level ends when it's done.
Away from the screen: A dig in the sandpit
About two minutes, with things most homes have.
- Bury a few small things in a sandpit, a tray of rice or a bowl of flour: a shell, a spoon, a toy dinosaur.
- Give your child a paintbrush or a pastry brush.
- They brush gently until they find something. No digging with fingers!
- They tell you what they found.
Three questions to ask while they play
- What do you think is hiding?
- Why do fossil hunters brush gently?
- What did you find? Is it from long ago?
Play together
Things to say or ask
- Brush, brush, brush. What can you see?
- An ammonite! It lived in the sea, long, long ago.
Taking turns on one device: Take turns brushing, a few rubs each, until the find is uncovered.
If they find it hard
Show them a small rub with one finger, and let them do it with you. On Tiny Steps the sand comes away faster.
From two to eight
Tiny Steps: made for two- and three-year-olds too. With Tiny Steps on, it stays on its gentlest level, a not-yet tap is never counted, and there's nothing to read.
Switch Tiny Steps on in Who's playing?, on the grown-ups' page.
Every fact, and where it comes from
What Ruby Roo says in Dig It Up! was checked against the page it links to.
- Most fossils form when a plant or animal dies in water and is buried in mud and silt; the soft parts rot away, the hard bones or shells are left, and over time the layers harden into rock. Bones, teeth, footprints and even droppings can be fossils. (Australian Museum)
- Footprints are fossils too: they record where an animal walked, not just what it looked like. (Australian Museum)
- Lightning Ridge, in New South Wales, has the greatest number and variety of opalised fossils in Australia: dinosaurs, turtles, crocodiles, fish, early mammals, shells, pine cones and seeds. (Australian Geographic)
What it practises
- Looking and finding. For two- and three-year-olds: looking for something hidden, and knowing it's still there when you can only see a bit of it.
EYLF 4.2 (Early Years Learning Framework V2.0) - Australian animals. What animals look like and where they live (My animal friends cards).
AC9SFU01 (Science, Foundation); AC9S1U01 (Science, Year 1)
The codes are from the Early Years Learning Framework V2.0 (for children from birth to five) and the Australian Curriculum v9 (Foundation to Year 2). Each links to the official wording. Every skill, and the games for it.
What it costs, and what we collect
Nothing, and nothing. There is no account, no advertising and no tracking of any kind. Which games have been played is remembered on your own device and is never sent anywhere. The full version is here, and it's short.
Where it lives
Dig It Up! is part of Fossil Finders. It works on a phone, a tablet or a classroom screen, and once it's been opened it keeps working with no signal at all.
Updated