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I have been working hard lately on all of our programs and we are very close to having the dinosaur presentation I want us to have. We have a name for this program, Dinos Rock. Yes it is not super creative but for 2nd graders, this is a geology themed program. For 3rd graders, it is adaptation based but the name works. We have added some pieces that gives us more than a few teeth. Nothing museum quality or anything but a few bones help the visual factor. I have been studying the biology, geology and ecology of dinosaurs so the science will be good. my son is working on the art but we wont have any done soon, he has school projects a head of this. We are close to being ready a full 6 months before I thought we would be. Hell Creek was going to be a focus for us because the fossils are available and this is the fauna that most kids will recognize. If you are willing to look hard, you can also find some real bargains from this formation. We turned a lot of early attention collecting attention to Hell Creek dinosaurs and I am actually really happy with where we are at with the fossil material we have. There is a lot of room to add and maybe upgrade in the future but this is a good start. This is the famous T-Rex and Triceratops fauna and we started our collection with those critters. Very early on, we were able to get a few Hell CreekTriceratops teeth. I am very happy that through a purchase from TFF member, we added two frill pieces. They are Lance formation but we are not covering the Lance formation yet so they will be used here. I also added a frill piece from Hell Creek. The kids will get to touch the largest frill piece which is a great bonus. An iconic dinosaur and I think well represented. Also early on, we stumbled into a great bit of a luck. A TFF member saw a post of ours and passed it on to another TFF member who sold us a beautiful Tyrannosaurus Rex partial tooth and gave us a really nice Nano too. It was very affordable and a generous gift was added that gave us nice pieces from the most famous dinosaur ever. The rock star really. I was not sure we would be able to get a decent example at all but to do it right off the bat was HUGE. This would not have happened if not for the members that decided to help us out. We are extremely grateful The first dinosaur fossil we got were two Hell Creek Edmontosaurus teeth that were a gift. We acquired a nice jaw fragment in a trade. I am a bargain shopper with a limited budget so I LOVE our Edmontosaurus as it has not cost much at all. I named this display Eddie I like it so much lol Hadrosaurs are important dinosaurs to talk about and I think a fair amount of kids may not know about them. I would like to add another bone later too. They seem attainable for us. Acheroraptor was behind only T-rex on the my list and we got a really beautiful tooth and it was another bargain pick up. I will talk a lot about this species and I will get deep into the biology/ecology of this awesome dino because I love Dromaeosaurids. Raptors are also an iconic dinosaur that kids love and this is a relatively new species which is another fun thing to discuss with the kids. We will also be introducing the kids to a theropod they have never heard of, Richardoestesia gilmorei. I have told me son to envision a toothed Cormorant type dinosaur as I lean toward them being a fish eater. It is pretty cool to get a Hell Creek dino that they will not know anything about. We have yet to add a Thescelosaurus fossil but we will before we start presenting. I want to add another piece of the fauna and it seems this is the most inexpensive option we will have. It will also give the kids another dinosaur they probably do not know and it will round out the basic Hell Creek fauna. There is no shortage of dinosaurs that we can add either. An Anky or Nodosaur scute is way up on the program list of fossils for me and hopefully we can find one from this formation. Dakotaraptor is #1 on my personal list and I will get one eventually. A Troodontid is also very high on the list as well. I know eventually i will also pick up an Ornithominid too. All three of these are more expensive so we will have to save and wait but each one would also make awesome educational dinosaurs. I also really want to add an Avian fossil. I have not researched this but my guess is they are very rare. Leptoceratops is another species I would love to add at some point too. They are really cute and kids will dig them. Anyway, here are some of the fossils. I think we have a good start going to our Hell Creek collection and I am looking forward to taking these to work with me very soon. Pic 1- Triceratops teeth and Eddie Pic 2- T-Rex, Nano, and Hell's Thief. I am so happy to have these fossils. Pic 3- One of the frill pieces. This one will end up in a larger Trike display with more teeth and another frill. Plus we will have nice frill for kids to check out too.

Today is a big day for Fossils on Wheels. It is our first multiple school, multiple program adventure. Three programs at two schools, 1 shark and 2 dino programs. I am excited to the point of being hyper, which could also be due to too much coffee lol This is a great challenge for me as I have to rapidly switch gears from shark adaptations to dinosaur adaptations. It is a physical challenge as well just setting up the different programs. My son is at school today so it is all me though he will be with me for a program tomorrow. By the end of today, more than 100 students will have gotten fossil education and free fossil starter kits. It took me several hours yesterday to reload our supply of fossils kits as we have already given out more than I anticipated but this is a fantastic problem to have

I am super excited to say we are adding a couple of fossils from Canada. Part of working on getting a 501c3 is making sure we operate within our own bi laws and working with any laws that govern whatever it is you do in your non profit. I saw a dealer with some Canadian fossils from the Horseshoe Canyon formation that came with a disposition from the Canadian government. I saw an opportunity to grab a few fossils that not only add something to our presentations but gave us legally obtained fossils from our neighbors to the north. The dealer was kind enough to work with us on holding a couple of items that were within our budget. There are some really interesting dinosaurs in Horseshoe Canyon and while we did not add anything rare or spectacular, I am quite happy with what we did pick up. We got our Ankylosaurus scute. We had been looking to pick one up and we were not finding anything affordable. Not only is the one we picked up from Horseshoe Canyon, it was quite affordable for us. I am not yet sure which Anky we will talk about in our program but either way this was a great addition. I think it compliments our "Zuul" tooth very nicely and the kids will really like seeing some of that Anky armor. We also picked up a toe bone from a Ceratopsian. The kids really liked learning about animals other than Triceratops so I jumped at the chance to add one from this formation. Like the Anky scute, the genus and species is indet but I am pretty sure we will talk about Pachyrhinosaurus when we show this fossil. It is a cool critter with a cool name. We talk a lot about Ceratopsians so this was an easy choice. We also added something really cool. We got a Dromaeosaurid tooth. When I purchased it, the seller had said it was from Judith River and labeled it as Dromaeosaurus albertensis. It is not from Judith River. It was actually collected from Red Deer River Badlands near Drumheller in Alberta. I am pretty sure it is actually from Horseshoe Canyon which means it is not Dromaeosaurus. The only described raptor from that formation is Atrociraptor. I will get around to posting better pictures and seeking an ID from TFF members eventually but for now am quite good with going with Atrociraptor for education programs. It was a pretty fearsome looking creature and also pretty different from the other raptors we present. Sure, I whiffed on Dromaeosaurus again but I am not complaining. It is another really nice tooth and we add another dinosaur to educate the kiddos about. This also gives us a theropod from the formation which rounds out the presentation nicely. I am pretty sure the tooth is also legal as it was collected in the 60's and has been in the US since the 70's. Anyway, here are the fossils minus the toe bone which I do not have a picture of yet.

We just wrapped up our first official fossil education program and it was AWESOME !! I let my son miss his last two classes of the day so we could do our first program together. We talked about how fossils are formed. We showed the kids some awesome fish fossils, our 5 inch Meg and some big whale fossils. Most of the program was about dinosaurs and we covered quite a bit of ground. The kids got to touch and feel Trike frill pieces. They saw T-Rex teeth and raptor teeth. We showed them fossils from a Titanosaur and Spinosaurs. We introduced them to Ornithiomimid dinosaurs and they learned about an Anky named Zuul. We wrapped our hour long program by giving 35 2nd grade students free fossil starter kits which was the highlight of the day. To all who have donated fossils, passed on knowledge and encouraged us....THANK YOU. All of the donations and support are putting fossils into the hands of kids and spreading natural history education. My favorite part was having Carter there with me. This is a fantastic start for us and it appears the future is very bright for Fossils on Wheels. All of the hard work we have put in is absolutely worth it and the faces of the kids at the end of the hour reflected that.

We have officially booked our first dinosaur education program A local teacher actually used The Fossil Forum to find us and ask us if we did dinosaur programs. We are dinosaur educators. The program is actually two days before our first official Fossils on Wheels shark program. I would never have thought our first program would be dinosaurs because we were not planning on even offering dinosaurs until the fall of this year. We are 9 months ahead of schedule but the demand is there so off we go in the wild world of dinosaurs. I am excited and a little nervous as I have less than two weeks to get myself ready. Thanks to donations from TFF members we have fossils to give these kiddos and we are going to have a lot of fun with this presentation. We get to talk about how fossils form and introduce the kids to the some awesome dinosaurs. I hope this is the first of many to come !! Thank you to The Fossil Forum and its members who have been so supportive and welcoming to us. Without your help, we would not be doing this.