A Long Time Ago, Dinosaurs Roamed the Earth... Today, They Are Roaming My Wreath... A Dinosaur Wreath!

 

A long time ago, the dinosaurs roamed the Earth... Today, they are roaming my wreath!

I put this simple wreath together for my son's dinosaur birthday party.

It was super simple and quick to make. I picked up a green foam wreath from the craft store (you could use white too, but I really like the green, it looks like they are really roaming the land lol). Using my low temp hot glue gun, I glued a bunch of little plastic dinosaurs on it in no particular order. It's that simple and too cute! This wreath will be on display in my house for his party, I have another one that I am working on for the front door.

 

DIY Rainbow Dinosaur Crayons-- Fun Party Favors for Our DINO-Mite Dinosaur Party!

We always save our broken crayons for use in other projects. They always seem to add up pretty quickly between my kids and our play group playdates.  We decided to use this bundle of broken crayons to make rainbow dinosaur crayons for my son's dinosaur party.

I purchased a few of these silicon dinosaur trays off of Amazon to make some dinosaur chocolates and dinosaur ice cubes. They also work great to make crayons in!

 

 

I used a knife to cut the larger pieces into smaller pieces.

 

 

My son filled the silicon tray with the little crayon pieces, filling each compartment just over the top.

 

 

We put it in the oven at 230 degrees for 15 minutes.

 

 

Let the wax cool completely before removing them from the tray.

They came out absolutely adorable, don't you think?

I will be putting these little guys in the goodie bags, as well as inside of the plastic eggs for our dinosaur egg hunt!

Dinosaur Jars

 

For the last two weeks, I have been planning and working on my son's 5th DINO-Mite birthday party. To be honest, I think I am more excited than he is! I love the dinosaur theme, there is so much that you can do with it. I made these simple, inexpensive dinosaur jars for each of the kids to take home. They were so quick and easy to make! I used baby food jars that I had left over from a playdate that I hosted in December, some left over spray paint from various different projects that I have made over the last few months, and some small plastic dinosaurs that I picked up in the dollar store(a 10 pack for $1.00). I used  razor to scrape off the wrappers and glue that was on the baby food jars. I removed the lids and spray painted them. Then, I glued the plastic dinosaurs on top of the lids with my hot glue gun. I decided to fill the jars with jelly beans since they look like little dinosaur eggs plus they are very inexpensive and can be found year round unlike other little egg shaped candies.

 

I think they came out adorable! The will add a nice touch to the tables and the party, as well as being an extra goodie for the kids to take home!!

 

 

Dino Fun Sensory Tub

 

We put  together our  Dinosaur Sensory tub earlier today. It is loaded with all types of dino fun! It includes river rocks for the filler, so it is definitely our heaviest sensory tub yet! There are 4 different wooden dinosaurs that I painted, different dinosaurs in three different sizes, a wooden painted volcano, a wooden painted tree and bush, a glow in the dark dinosaur skeleton, plastic shrubbery, a T-Rex hat, artifact brushes (paint brushes), dinosaur eggs, and more! We also included some Dinosaur Fossils that we made out of coffee grinds and coffee (click here to make your own),a dinsoaur bone we made (click here to make your own),  and 2 different types of dinosaur eggs that we made (click here to make some).  We had a lot of fun putting this together and making the different items to go along with this!

Let's Make Dinosaur Eggs!!!

 

My kids and I had a blast making dinosaur eggs! These were fun, easy, and inexpensive to make. We made 2 different types of dinosaur eggs, both worked great, but this is the messier recipe of the two.

 

 You need: 1 1/4 cup dirt, 1 1/4 cup flour, 3/4 cup salt, 1/2 cup sand, water, and plastic dinosaurs.

 

 

 

Combine all of the ingredients together in a bowl.  Form eggs around little plastic dinosaurs. Let the eggs dry out and harden. Dry time depends on the humidity and weather conditions. Our eggs took days to dry out completely.

 

After they were completely dried out, I gave my kids some tools and let them have at it!

Easy Peasy Dinosaur Bones

 

Check out our dinosaur bones! These were so simple and fun to make! My little guy really enjoyed making these for our dinosaur sensory tote.

 

 

To make these, I mixed some Elmer's School glue with water and cut out bone shapes out of cardstock.

We crumbled small pieces of toilet, soaked them in the glue solution, and squeezed them to release the excess water.

 

We then placed the pieces on the cardstock. 

 

When we were finished we let them air dry. When they dry, they dry hard like a paper mache. Dry time depends on the weather and the humidity, ours took about 4 days to dry out completely and harden.

Dinosaur Play Land!

 

This is our dinosaur play land that we set up yesterday. One side is covered with rocks and the other side is covered with our Moon Sand Dough. There are a bunch of different dinosaurs along with some different scenery items. I am in the process of making an erupting mini volcano to add to it. I decided to make this to go along with our dinosaur sensory tub and other dinosaur activities that we have been working on. I'm glad I did because my little dinosaur is loving it! 

 Here is my youngest all ready for some dinosaur play with his T-Rex hat that we got at that Dollar Tree and his safety goggles on! Ha! A little Paleontologist in the making!

Make Your Own Dinosaur Fossils!

To go along with our Dinosaur Sensory Tote and other dinosaur activities that we are working on, we made some dinosaur fossils. These were simple to make and the kids really enjoyed making them. My kids have big smiles on their faces and my house smells like a coffee shop!

 

To make your own, all you need is:
1 cup used coffee grounds
1/2 cup cold coffee
1/2 cup salt
1 cup flour

Mix the coffee grounds, coffee, salt, and flour together in a mixing bowl.

 

Mix until ingredients are combined and a dough is formed.

Form small balls of dough in your hands and flatten them out into circles that are about 1/2 inch thick on a cookie sheet.

 

 

 

Lay small dinosaurs on their side to make dinosaur imprints and you can use larger dinosaur dinosaurs to make footprints.

 

 

 

When your baking sheet is full or you are out of dough....

 

 

 

Bake them in the oven at 200 degrees for 30 minutes.

 

 

 

Take the fossils out of the oven and carefully remove them from the cookie sheet with a spatula.  Once they are cooled, turn them over and let the bottoms dry out overnight. Ours were still a bit soft after a few days, so I decided to put them back in the oven for 30 minutes at 350 degrees and they are nice and hard now.

Dinosaur Train Dinosaurs A to Z Busy Bag

 

I had to put together a Dinosaur themed busy bag this week. While searching for ideas, I came across a link to the PBS Website. Dinosaur Train, which is one of my son's favorite shows, is on PBS, so I thought it might be a good place to find some inspiration. I found the lyrics to the Dinosaurs A to Z song along with matching pictures. Jackpot! There was my busy bag! I printed out the 3 pages on cardstock, laminated the song lyrics, and cut and laminated the dinosaur cards. This busy bag will  help the kids practice their ABC's by putting the alphabet cards in order and help them recognize 26 different species of dinosaurs while they have fun singing the song! If you haven't seen the show or the episode that showcased that song, they have the video on the PBS website for you to check out.

Visit PBS for the free printables and make a Dinosaur Train Busy Bag for the dinosaur lovers in your life!