Dinosaur Party -5yr- Egg Hunt for Pinata Order

Dinosaur Party--5 year old 

Invitations:  Store bought (from Longs) dinosaur invitations that I sealed with dinosaur stickers. 

Decorations:  18 balloons, green, blue and yellow.  Green streamers (we were in a recreation room) and various dinosaur toys and stuffed animails. 

When kids arrived: They decorated foam visors with dinosaur foam pieces (from Michaels Craft Store) and glue.  I bought the large dinosaur assortment from Oriental Trading and it was very helpful.  I used the toys for both games and prizes. 

Games:  Dinosaur Extinction (hot potato).  Kids sat in a circle and and an adult played music on a CD player as the kids passed around a large plastic dinosaur.  When the music stopped, the kid holding the dinosaur was out and went to the tattoo station and had an adult put a dinosaur tattoo on the child's hand using a sponge.  Tattoos were from Oriental Trading.  Winner gets a prize and a tattoo. 

Egg nest relay.  I set out 3 plastic bowls (dinosaur nests)and put dinosaur eggs (from OTC)  inside the bowl.  There was one egg for each child.  Then the kids lined up and were divided into 3 equal teams.  The first kid in each line would run to the nest, get one plastic egg and put it on a spoon (also in the nest).  Then the child would carefully walk back to his team holding the spoon in his hand with the egg in the spoon.  If the egg fell out, the child had to stop, put the egg back on the spoon and continue.  When the child reached his team, the next teammate in line would go.  This was a very successful game and the kids wanted to do it over and over.  One time they had to crawl to the nest.  One time they had to walk backwards.  One time they had to skip to the nest, etc.  I wrote down the names of the kids on the winning teams and awarded the prized discretely at the end of the party.  With the large OTC assortment, I had more than enough prize options. 

Beach ball toss.  I bought the dinosaur globe beach balls from OTC.  Kids lined up in two lines and tossed the ball to the kid across from them.   If their teammate caught the ball, they'd take one step back and toss again.  If they dropped the ball, they're out.  This was another game that the kids played over and over and didn't care about prizes.  Each child took home a dinosaur beach ball as a party favor at the end.  Dinosaur gliders.  The 250 piece dinosaur assortment from OTC contained dinosaur gliders.  I handed one to each child and a parent explained how to assemble the gliders.  I had planned to have a contest to see which glider would fly the longest, but the kids were thrilled just throwing them around themselves.  They did this for a long time and it was a bonus for me to have them joyfully entertained.  Each child got to take home his/her glider as a party favor. 

Guess how many dinosaurs in the jar.  I was going to do "Guess how many dino rocks in the jar", but the OTC assortment came with little strechy dinosaurs.  I put those in a jar next to a paper with lines for the kids to write their names and guess.  I had kids guess at the beginning and throughout the party, one guess each.  At the end, the winner received the jar of stretchy dinos.   

Dinosaur Pinata.  I bought the pinata at the local party supply store, but I later saw some at K-Mart and on OTC.  I filled the pinata with toys from the OTC assortment and with candy.  Before the pinata, I had all the kids sit on the side of the party room and a parent handed each child a brown paper bag with his/her name and a dinosaur sticker on it to collect the candy.  In the meantime, I hid dinosaur eggs (OTC assortment)--one egg for each child.  The eggs were plastic bumpy eggs with tiny plastic dinosaurs inside. 

I had written the a number with a sharpie marker on the outside of each egg.  The numbers were 2-12.  I intentionally left out #1.  The numbers represented the order for the pinata.  In other words, the kid who found the egg with the 2 would go second.  I didn't tell the kids anything about the numbers and their meanings ahead of time, I just told the group that we were going to hunt for dinosaur eggs and each kid needed to find just one and come back and sit down against the wall.  The hunt was quick and the kids sat down.  

Then it was time for the pinata.  The birthday boy went first (regardless of the number on his egg).  This is why I didn't write #1 on any of the eggs.  Then the kid with #2 went, followed by #3, etc.  This was very successful for a number of reasons.  The kids didn't need to stand in line while waiting to hit the pinata.  The kids did not argue at all about who went first or what order, they knew when their turn was coming and were very patient.  Also, the dinosaur eggs kept them slightly occupied.  They were a little challeging to open and then the dinosaurs inside were all different, so the kids had a small trinket to play with while they waited.  They were amazingly quiet and remained seated while they waited to hit the pinata, so I didn't have to worry about any children getting hit by the bat. 

The numbered eggs were my favorite part of the party.  Another variation is to put the number on a paper inside of a plastic egg.  It was important that the kids didn't know that the number was significant so they didn't refuse to pick up numbers 11 or 12.  I just told them to find an egg as fast as they could and sit down.  Also the eggs were out in the open, not really hidden.  

Food: Dinosaur shaped Ritz crackers and water out during the party.  The party wasn't during a meal time, so I kept the snacks very light and emphasized the activities. We had a green Dinosaur shaped cake from Albertson’s, which was pretty inexpesive.  My son opened presents at the end of the party and said good-bye to the guests, who went home with their bag of pinata candy and dino toys, dinosaur globe beach ball, glider, and decorated visor.   I kept the party to 2 hours and we all had a lot of fun.  Thank you.