Dinosaur Birthday Ideas

Our site has loads of free printables for use at a Dinosaur themed Birthday Party, including printable cards, gift bags, coloring pages and crafts.  Many of these are needed for every party and many of the others make great treat bag additions or even gifts for the birthday boy or girl.  Check out our Dinosaur Section for all of these and more.  

But we all know there's more to a party than things you print out!  Here are some ideas to fill in the gaps:

ACTIVITIES/GAMES:

Keri contributes:

• Make a BINGO game using pictures, signs or words from the series.

Catherine contributes:

• Instead of playing what's the time Mr Wolf, call it Whats the time Mr Rex, Give the person who is in a mask and tail to wear.
• Make dinosaur eggs and hide them over the house or use them for serving treats from.

  Cover a Balloon with paper mache, leave to dry, cut it off either spliting the egg like a brocken shell or cutting it neatly in half.  (see how to paper mache directions if you're not sure how to go about it)

  Paint in dinosaur colours, greens, yellows, browns.

• Make a dinosaur egg pinata from a large balloon.  
  • Cover a large balloon with paper mache (see how to paper mache directions if you're not sure how to go about it).
  • Make sure to leave an unmache'd space where the tie is.
  • Let dry.  Once dry, pop the balloon and remove it.
  • Fill the pinata with treats through the hole where the tie was (you can put the treats in small baggies if they're not wrapped already.
  • Cut a round circle of cardboard and poke a hole through it.  Slide a thin rope through the hole and put the entire circle in the pinata.
  • Cover with masking tape and add another couple layers of mache.
  • Let dry again.
  • Paint in dinosaur colours, greens, yellows, browns.  It gives a cute, speckled look if you sponge paint a variety of colours overtop of each other using a kitchen sponge or sea sponge.

One viewer suggests:

• Relay Race:  children carry a 'dinosaur' egg on a teaspoon.  (You can color a hard boiled egg with an Easter coloring kit or food coloring dye and add marker or crayon spots).  Or, you can use plastic eggs.
• There are templates for a big (but fairly friendly) T Rex puppet on the site.  You could print the template pieces and tape them together.  Print numerous tail templates and you'll have a pin the tail on the dinosaur game.  To make it even bigger, take the 8 1/2 x 11 inch pages to your local copy store and have them all blown up to 11 x 17.

DECORATIONS:

One viewer suggests:

• Green streamers and balloons would work well with the Dinosaur color scheme.
• Any jungle decorations would work great.  Move your houseplants into a central 'gift opening' area.  You can even borrow houseplants from friends and family to increase the foliage in the house.

FOOD

The purchase of one appropriately shaped cookie cutter can go a long way!

• I made dinosaur bone shaped Peanut Butter & Jelly (make sure the guests aren't allergic!), egg salad, & bologna/cheese sandwiches, dinosaur shaped cookies with green frosting, dinosaur shaped green Jell-O jigglers (make a big cookie sheet of jello jiggler and cut out once set).
• The children can decorate their cookies with icing and sprinkles as a food activity.
• Glue small images (from coloring pages or clipart) onto toothpicks.  Let dry.  Stick in the top of cupcakes for an instant theme party treat!