Dinosaur Party -6yr- Volcano Eruption

My son Matthew was turning six and he wanted to have a dinosaur themed party. We got great ideas from this website and used many of them along with some of our own.

First, we made his invitations using construction paper and then we bought foam dinosaur stickers (from Michael's) we decorated it and then ran off some invitations on the computer, we cut them jaggered shape, (you could cut in the shape of a dinosaur footprint), we than put them in big yellow envelopes with a Land Before Time Coloring book and some crayons (dollar tree for coloring book & Walmart for pack of 4 crayons), then we marked it Top Secret on the enevelop with glitter.  The kids were really excited to get them.

Decorations: We then began making large dinosaurs from cardboard wardrobe boxes we had. We made a total of 4. Stegosaur, Tricertop, Brontosaur and T-Rex. They turned out good, I spent a little  more time on the T-Rex one because I was going to have the kids take their picture and then send home with thank you cards. We actually were having our pool revonated and it was empty so we tranformed it into a Dinosaur Dig. I spray painted the walls with mountains and then hand painted palm trees and low shrubs.  We even painted two dinosaurs and used the jet holes as eyeballs(my sons idea!)a erupting volcano. 

We fenced off the deep ends so the kids couldn't walk around it.  We used a real army netting to drape over the deep end to create a sort of cave like feel. We decorated the loveseat with some scrubs that I was going to plant in the yard and used my sons play dinosaurs and dirt to create a scene.  We then poured play sand at the bottom of the deep end and placed fossils that we made from plaster of paris using a mold kit we got from the book store(Barnes and Noble).  We got 4 pack paint brushes from the dollar store.(99 cent store).  

The kids were told that while we were redoing our pool we came across real dinosaur fossils.  They all believed us and were very excited to find the fossils. I also used a heavy painter's plastic that I taped down so the kids could slide down ( the pool was quite deep). and we walked them back up. ( I okayed the pool idea with all the moms before the party, my husband was really nervous about it)

Games: We did the fossils mentioned above and the dinosaur walk using dinosaur shaped feet with numbers on them, when the music stopped my husband would call a number and that child would go to the prize bucket(dinosaur eggs, squishy dinosaur,dino pens and dino tatoos and candy eggs all from OTC) and get a prize.

Pin the dinosaur in the T-Rex mouth. I drew and decorated with glitter a T-Rex with lots of teeth and used the left over foam dinosaurs to write the kids name and then had them try and stick it in the T-Rex mouth. The one closer to the inside of his mouth won.  I had gotten wooden dinosaur shapes at Michael's ($1 a piece)and had them paint them  along with their fossils they found if they wanted to.

Volcano: We made a volcano out of two tomato stands wired together it was 3 1/2 feet tall,we then tinfoiled it and took newspaper stripes and dipped them into diluted plaster of paris. We then painted it when dry (24 hr). I took a ziploc bowl and put it in the mouth of the volcano and used a squirt of dish soap and dixie cup of baking soda to a half of coffee cup of dyed red vinegar for each eruption, the kids loved this and did it three times each. I also bought a bag of lava rock from Home Depot and put that at the base of volcano, kids were told it was real volcano rock and took some home in their bags I had given them at the beginning of the party to put all their stuff in. ( I heard after the party if you use Mento's the candy, and diet coke together it would really erupt , maybe good for older kids.)

Last game we played was that I bought dinosaur masks from Party City ( were on clearence) had them wear them and told them to pretend to be dinosaurs and that egg stealing dinosaurs had taken their eggs and they had to go find them.

We hid dino eggs all over the yard ( I got 6 doz From OTC). They got to find four each. Trying to open them kept them busy while they waited from the rest of kids to return. Food: We served dino nuggets (Sam's Club) and round tater tots(eggs) and grapes along with Ritz's dino crackers. Mom's had sub sub sandwiches. 

For dessert we got Krispy creamed Boston doughnut's and put a dinosaur on it along with a candle for each kid, we also served chocolate pudding cups with crushed oreos and gummy dinosaurs. ( Dino stuck in the mud.) I also got Krispy crème doughnuts for the adults variety pack. ( I probably wouldn't recommend buying the fill ones , the kids really didn't eat them that much.)

Goody bags: I made dinosaur eggs using a 9 inch balloon and used a paper mache on them out of newspaper and flour.  I looked up paper mache recipes on the internet. There are a ton.  I must of made some to thick because some didn't dry. I had to redo, so I would recommend only three layers of newspaper. I then painted them and speckled them with paint. When dry I stuffed them with all sorts of thing from the OTC and candy. You have to cut a 2- 3 inch line on it and patch when done.  My son passed this out when the kids left.

I thought the party was a success and the kids were kept busy. We heard from some moms that there kids couldn't stop talking about his party. So our efforts of hard work payed off and my son said he had the best b-day party and asked if we could do it again for next year, of course minus out the pool since it got chipped out the day after the party!!