Dinosaur Party!

I am posting this after the fact. My daughter turned 4 and what does she want for a party? Dinosaurs! I must admit at first I was skeptical, but I loved planning this! This was her first "real" party, with lots of guests (she is in a playgroup). However, a lot of the members of her group are younger then she is, so I had to find things to do that everyone can enjoy! So, now she wanted dinosaurs, but what kind of dinosaurs? So I opened up Amazon (I love Amazon!) typed in Dinosaur party supplies and let my daughter chose which dinosaurs she wanted. She picked Diggin for Dinos!

Which of course is a little grown up, but I loved the vibrant colors and the fact that it actually had the names of the different dinosaurs printed on it. The tablecloth has trails of feet and little fun facts on it. So for the games or activities I planned. I spent hours looking up activities for a dinosaur party. Eventually I decided to let the theme decide for me. A Dinosaur Dig! I bought these cute little skeleton dinosaurs from amazon...

If she was older, I would have gotten a dinosaur skeleton kit that had to be put together, but figured to hard for a 4 year old. Then I bought a bunch of tubs from the Dollar Tree and covered them in green
paper I had cut to look like grass. I filled them with sand I bought at Walmart.

I made the signs with Avery. I printed them on regular paper (my printer will not print on card stock). Then glued the paper on card stock to make them stick. I googled pics of dinosaurs for each of the signs. The children LOVED this activity. They spent most of their time digging up the dinosaurs, reburying them and digging them up again.
However, for variety, I also planned a Dinosaur Egg Hunt. I used leftover Easter Eggs that were camouflage, again bought at the Dollar Tree. I bought these tiny dinosaurs at amazon.

I was planning to make cupcakes and use these as cupcake toppers, but figured they would fit in the eggs perfectly! So I put them in the eggs and then put them in tubs with paper grass over them and filled with fake Easter grass. Since we were at a public park, I did not want to hide the eggs all over the park. This activity was not as well liked as the dinosaur dig, but the children did get a kick out of playing with the dinosaurs.

For the last activity I bought some air dry clay from Michael's and set up an area where they could make "fossils". I used the leftover dinosaur skeletons and tiny dinosaurs for this.

The kids loved this activity too. They spent a lot of time building things with the clay. For the food I wanted to go with the theme.

Jurassic Salad or Carrots and Celery. The carrots were a hit, but not so the celery.

Dinosaur Bones or Pretzels.

Brontosaurs bites or meatballs.

Sandwiches both herbivore (peanut butter and jelly) and carnivores (ham and cheese). I used this awesome sandwich cutter I found on Amazon, to cut the dinosaurs into dinosaur shapes!

Swamp Dip.... Guacamole with chips.

For drinks we had Lava Juice and water.

And of course the cake. I googled dinosaur cakes on Yahoo and found some directions on how to make a dinosaur cake. You bake a cake normally in 2 round pans. With one round cake, cut it in half and place it standing up on a cake board. I used frosting to keep it together. Then with the other round cake, you cut out the tail, legs, and head. Cover in frosting. The spikes for this cake were made with fondant. I bought the fondant at walmart. I rolled it out and cut out the triangles the night before. They way they were nice and hard, which made it easier to place in the cake.

The cake was a total hit!The cake was on a table and leading up to it were these cute little cardboard dinosaurs I bought at Michael's for only a $1. They came two to a pack. The cake box was also bought at Michael's.

As you can see, Little Bear was excited about playing with them and lost the T-rex's tail.

I also made favor bags for the children. I bought these cute little bags from the Dollar Tree. They came in packs of three, which was great! I let Little Bear pick the colors. Then I bought a dinosaur stencil book from Amazon and painted dinosaurs on each book.

I filled the bags with shovels, stamps and bubbles I bought from amazon. The shovels came 3 to a pack which is great when buying for a lot of children. I also put 2 tiny dinosaurs (left over from the egg hunt and fossil making) in each bag. I also made sugar cookies (using the sandwich cutter) to put dinosaur cookies in each bag. I bought ribbon and clear plastic bags from Walmart to put the the cookies in.

Since we were at a park, there was not much need for decorations, however I found the idea for little dinosaur footprints leading up to the party so cute. So I printed out a picture and then cute out card stock footprints. However, instead of taping them to the ground, I used sidewalk chalk and made the footprints leading to the party area. Then let the kids make "caveman drawings" with the sidewalk chalk.

When it was all said and done, the party was a total SUCCESS! I even made thank you cards for my daughter to sign for those who got her gifts. It helped her practice her writing, plus it was dinosaurs which she loves!

I made the cards using Avery and just printed them out at home. I had a blast planning this party. I was so happy that all the kids had a blast. Some, Little Bear included stayed in the party area the whole time and never even went to play on the playground. I can not wait to find out what she wants to do next year!