Gold Panning Activity Craft

We finally did our gold panning activity after we learned about the gold rush. I am a week behind on this activity. This is an easy activity to do at home.

Supplies:

Strainers
Large Pan like a dish pan
Beans all kinds
Gold Paint
Plastic bag 
Rocks of various sizes
Sand (optional)
Water is optional 
Scales (optional)

You will need to paint the beans and rocks in advance. All you need to do is to add some of the gold paint to a baggie and put the beans and rocks you want painted gold into the baggie and shake! Don't paint them all gold as you need to have something to hide the gold ones.

You can also use sand. I didn't use sand since I knew it would be cold outside when we did this activity. Y'all know how messy sand is inside and it's not very fun to clean up.

 I bought my strainers at the dollar store in the summer time. We already had our math scales.

See all the gold beans! Okay, so I made it some what easy for the kids. I didn't want to spend hours at this activity!

 Bug had fun looking for the gold nugget. I actually had a fools gold nugget that I picked up a long time ago. I had them search for that first before they pulled out the painted beans and rocks!

 Bug was the first one to find her gold nugget. Way to go Bug!

Then she got to see how many ounces of gold she had. Well it didn't actually register on the scale.

So we added more gold to the scale.

 Little Man is not one to hold back! He made it known that he found gold and is rich! He did tell me that, "he would share his fortune with his family":+)

He had already added all his gold to the scale.

 It entertained them for a good hour after we finished up our activities. Which included weights and how to use a scale.

A fun filled activity that's easy to do and makes learning about the gold rush fun.