If your children love dinosaurs, here are a collection of 10 fabulous dinosaur themed activities that incorporate sensory play, maths, imagination, storytelling, creating, crafting and more! Enjoy!
1) Handprint Dinosaurs
Create your own dinosaurs, using your very own handprint for their body, legs and neck. Add eyes and a tail to complete your creation.
Materials: Easy Wash paint, paintbrush, paper, googly eyes (optional), marker.
TIP: To avoid really awkward twisting of the wrist, print your handprint with your hand around the right way and then turn your paper upside down to get the "dinosaur legs" on the bottom of the page
To make the head, either print an extra thumb print at the end of your dinosaurs "neck" or slightly move your thumb when making your handprint to create a head shape. Press your googly eyes on while the paint is still wet. Alternatively you could stick them on with glue or draw on eyes once the paint has dried.
Use your paintbrush to add a tail to your dinosaur. You could also add spikes or any other details you'd like.
Add further details with a permanent marker once the paint is dry.
2) Create your own Dinosaur World
Materials they could use are:
- a large tub
- your favourite plastic dinosaurs
- rocks
- trees (use plastic shrubbery or collect some leaves and twigs from outside)
- smaller tub for lake/pond (optional)
- water (optional)
- felt for grass or water
Have fun playing, using imagination and story telling to create adventures for your dino friends in their new dinosaur land!
3) Dinosaurs in Sticky Mud
4) Paper Plate-a-sauruses (with free printable templates)
Use some basic supplies, including these free printable dinosaur templates to create your own paper plate dinosaur friends.
Use your creations for decoration or story telling. You could even try sticking a craft stick to your designs, turning the lights out and shining a torch on your dinosaur for some cool dinosaur shadow puppets!
My kids noticed that the Diplodocus looked a lot like Arlo the Apatosaurus. They were right! They do look similar and in fact, they are both from the Diplodocidae Family.
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| This super cool activity made by The Craft Train for Learn with Play at Home |
5) Sandpit Dino Dig!
How about trying out the role of paleontologist with your own dinosaur bone excavation in the sandpit? You can see more pictures of our dino dig (and whole Dinosaur Party) here.
6) Make your Own Dinosaur Bones
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| Picture by The Imagination Tree |
If you don't have any plastic dinosaur bones to dig up, fear not! You could make your own using these instructions from The Imagination Tree. You'll also see some great ideas on how to use the bones to work on maths concepts such as length and counting.
7) Create Dinosaur Fossils from Coffee Grounds
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| Picture by I Can Teach My Child |
As well as bones, you can make some very cool dinosaur fossils out of coffee grounds using these instructions from I Can Teach My Child.
8) Make Dinosaur Masks
Use paper-plates to make your favourite dinosaur masks and use them for imaginary play. Or, you can print out some free Dinosaur Masks from Itsy Bitsy Fun or from Mother Natured here. What would you use to make an Apatosaurus mask?
9) Cardboard Tube Dinosaurs
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| Picture by The Craft Train |
Get crafty making these adorable dinosaurs from The Craft Train, using cardboard tubes or toilet paper rolls. See the full instructions on how to make them here. If you collect enough cardboard rolls, you could even create an entire prehistoric land!
10) "The Good Dinosaur" Colouring Sheets
Decorate your favourite characters from The Good Dinosaur movie with these free printable colouring sheets. Click on the links to download and print your favourites. Paint, colour or collage them as you like.
** Arlo & Spot 1 ** Arlo & Spot 2 ** Butch ** Ramsey ** Nash **
Perhaps you could use them as inspiration to write your very own story imagining what it might be like if dinosaurs never became extinct, or "If I had a dinosaur as a friend".
Happy creating!
Do you have any dinosaur fans in your family?
Happy playing,
Debs :)
Look where else we are. Are you following along? :)
