Dinosaur Egg
In a shallow bowl mix some flour and water until you get a runny paste. Tear some newspaper into small strips. Place an inflated balloon on top of a cup or a small container so that it doesn’t tip over. Dip and soak newspaper strips in the paste and remove excess paste. Place strips on the balloon. Overlap strips until the whole balloon is completely covered. Apply three of four layers and let dry. When strips are completely dry, let your child paint the egg.

Dinosaur Bones
Spray paint a number of small dog bones white. Place them in a shallow rectangular baking dish and cover with sand or clean dirt. Tell your child to pretend that he/she is a paleontologist and that he/she will be digging for dinosaur fossils. Because dinosaurs are now extinct, he/she must examine and study these fossils to understand the history of this fascinating group of animals. Explain that the bones and the ground around the dinosaurs let us know when the dinosaurs died and what the climate was like when they lived. Just digging up the fossils could take years! Provide children with digging tools such as small toy shovels, paintbrushes, sticks, etc.

Dinosaur Activity
Make two identical sets of dinosaur pictures. (You can find great dinosaur templates on our site or in coloring books.) Place the pictures face down on a table or on the floor and mix them up. Have your child turn over a picture. Then have him/her turn over another picture to try to find its match. If the two pictures don’t match, have your child turn the pictures over and try again. Play until all the pictures are matched. 

Fossil Dinosaur Craft
Have children make imprints in playdough using pennies or leaves. Explain how this is very similar to how dinosaur fossils were made. Bones made imprints in the mud. This mud hardened and became a rock or stone. When this rock or stone is broken the imprint is still in place. Explain that we can learn about dinosaurs through fossils.

Dino, Dino, Who Has Your Bone?
Have your child close his/her eyes. Hide the dino bone. (A dog’s chew toy bone makes a good dino bone.) Say, “Dino, Dino, who has your bone, somebody stole it from your home. Guess who!” Have your child try to find the bone.

Dinosaur Salad
Explain that many dinosaurs were plant eaters. Discuss with your child that fruits and vegetables are parts of plants. Provide a variety of fruits and vegetables. Peel and slice the fruits/vegetables and place in a bowl. Mix together. Serve on a paper plate. Ask your child to eat his/her fruit or vegetable salad just as dinosaurs might have—without hands. Some suggested fruits and vegetables: bananas, apples, grapes, oranges, cantaloupe, watermelon, strawberries, lettuce, carrots, broccoli, and cauliflower.

Dinosaur Dancing
Discuss different ways the dinosaurs moved. Walk slowly like a Triceratops, run fast like a Compsognathus, etc. Play some instrumental music and let your child move or dance around like a dinosaur.

One of the things that makes dinosaurs so popular is their sheer size. Their size is just one of many things that grabs a child’s attention immediately. Take for example the well known largest meat-eating Tyrannosaurus Rex (or T. Rex) – it measured up to 43 feet in length, up to 13 feet tall and weighed a whopping 7 or 8 tons! Dinosaurs plush are a great replica of these huge animals, right down to their life-like frightening faces. Other popular dinosaurs include the Stegosaurus and the Triceratops, and are also available as dinosaurs plush.

We all remember the ever popular television show The Flintstones. It has been so pervasive in our culture, that generations of children and adults have tuned in to watch it. While the cartoon’s humor was aimed at adults, it was filled with plenty of other things to keep kids interested. Set in the Stone Age era, dinosaurs were prevalent in the show, which appealed to children.  And every one of them was turned into some kind of dinosaur plush; a baby woolly mammoth was used as a vacuum cleaner. An adult woolly mammoth was used as the shower when its trunk sprayed water. Brontosaurs were used as parts of tractors in the rock quarry where Fred Flintstone worked. But the most famous dinosaur portrayed on the show was Dino, Fred’s beloved pet. It was never specified what type of dinosaur Dino represented, but he had a long neck, a small head, and very short arms and legs. His best features were his purple color and long, ever-wagging tail. Many Dinosaur plush have been made in Dino’s likeness and are considered a collectable item.

Dinosaurs plush were made even more popular after the release of the movie Jurassic Park in 1993. For the first time, children were able to see what real dinosaurs looked like after seeing the incredible special effects used in the film. The dinosaur park depicted in the movie leaves nothing to the imagination. As was the case, anything a child could get their hands on to remind them of the experience, was in demand. This included any and all dinosaurs plush. Subsequently, an additional four films have been released due to their extreme popularity.

With dinosaurs plush, children get to experience the next best thing to a real dinosaur. After all, children are also fascinated by these animals because of the fear they instill. They are nothing if not scary! Using dinosaurs plush, children can go on whatever dangerous adventure they can imagine and still come home safe and sound.