Budding Paleontologist (10-11yr) Jurassic Living Room

This is a more grown up party for the Budding Paleontologist in the Intermediate (10-11 year old) set. 

First, borrow the following book from your local library : MODEL A MONSTER-making dinosaurs from everyday materials, by Colin Caket, 1986, Blandford Press. 

Party Favors, Activities and Refreshments can be gleaned from the information in this book. It is easy enough that your "tween-ager" can do most of it without much help just a bit of supervision.  

Recipes for dino desserts are Vanilla Godzilla, Strawberry Stegosaur, and Dimetrodon Dessert are basically scoops of ice cream decorated with graham crackers, cookies, etc., to resemble dinosaurs.  There is even a recipe for a Sponge-Cake Stegosaur. 

This book allows you to build dinosaurs of every shape and size from a variety of common household materials, such as cardboard, coathangers, posterboards, etc., which would make very good place cards, decorations, and are fun enough that everyone can make a dinosaur to take home with them.  

Jurassic Living Room - imagine Flying Rhamphornynchus models made from kite materials suspended from the living room ceiling. How about standing paper Iganodon, T-Rex, Mosasaur and Brachiosaur models for place cards?  All of these patterns are in MODEL A MONSTER and are fun to make. 

A more mature version of pin the tail on the donkey is called "Build the Dinosaur" - blow up a photograph of an assembled dinosaur skeleton from your favorite dinosaur book to fit a large wall of your home or garage. Use an opaque projector or overhead projector (make a transparent slide first).

Trace the skeleton onto large sheets of cardboard (flatten a refrigerator box and use the non-printed side). Cut out the dinosaur skeleton into sections - a tail section, a rib section, the skull, and so on. Put poster putty on the back of the dinosaur pieces.

Give each party guest a section of the dinosaur. You can assemble it on the floor, or use the poster putty to assemble the dinosaur on the wall for a "life size" effect. 

Freeze plastic dinosaurs in half-gallon orange juice cartons of water, then have your young scientists carefully chip the ice block away with hammer and chisels (or for the persnickety paleontologist, find some toy mastodons - they have been found in the polar ice cap).