Dino Party -4yr- Dinosaur Excavation Room

For my Son's 4th birthday we had a Dinosaur themed party. 

INVITATIONS: For each of the invitations I cut out two identical large oval shapes to represent a dinosaur egg using heavy cream colored card paper.  One of the eggs I cut a zigzag through the middle of the oval to look like a cracked  egg then I fastened the two ovals together one on top of the other with a gold fastener so that the cracked oval could open up.  Then I taped the invitation inside which was a picture of dinosaur on a separate piece of white paper. 

On the paper I wrote BREAKING NEWS . . . Dinosaurs Discovered in (our hometown) Come and Join in the New Discovery, then listed the birthday information.  I then hand delivered.  When the kids received the invitation they got to pull apart the cracked egg and read about the party.  This was a big hit. 

ACTIVITIES:  I made molding clay (1 C. cornstarch, 16 oz baking soda and 1 1/2 C. water and mixed this together on the stove until it forms a ball, knead it until smooth, roll out & use for cut-outs or mold into shapes, then bake at 300 for 20 - 30 mins. until hard)  I used this clay for 2 of my projects - dinosaur bones (dog bone cookie cutters in 3 sizes) for the

"Fossil dig" (buried the bones in play sand in a plastic kiddie pool) and for

"Hatching dinosaur eggs" (shaped the clay around small dinosaurs and let the kids hatched their dinosaur eggs by breaking them open with sm. plastic hammers), I placed the hatching dino eggs on a bed of green dyed coconut in a bowl on everyone's table 

"Made dinosaur skeletons" (I traced a picture of a dinosaur on the same card paper for the invitations because it was sturdy and had the kids glue on an assorted items to make the skeleton (dry beans i.e. pinto, kidney, split pea etc., assorted pasta noodles varying in shape and size, cheerios, etc.)

"Dinosaur coloring pages" - I copied some outlines of dinosaurs and stapled them together into a book and had the kids color as the other guests arrived (these were in their favor bags with a box of crayons)

"Dinosaur Egg Hunt" - I spray painted large plastic Easter eggs gray and used a sponge to put brown speckles on them, I then filled some of them with small plastic dinosaurs and others with candy (these were hid throughout the room and we went on a dinosaur egg hunt (using their pail & shovels to collect the eggs) 

FAVORS: I purchased plastic pail and shovels all the same color (to be used for the fossil dig & dinosaur egg hunt) I put hanging tags on each with the child's name so that everyone could find theirs.  For favors I bought several bags of small dinosaurs, and other dinosaur theme items.  I put all of the favors in a brown lunch bag that I decorated with dinosaur stickers and the child's name and placed them in the pails so that the favors could easily be taken out for activities. 

DECORATIONS:  I used a stencil of a dinosaur foot and copied it on the copy machine with a white piece of paper behind it so that it looked like a dinosaur footprint.  I placed the footprints on the sidewalk leading to our house, in the house and downstairs to the party room. On poster board I made a list of the activities and captioned it "The Excavation Room". 

I decorated with green streamer - hanging from the ceiling to look like trees, and over the doorway to the room.  I purchased 2 paper palm trees from a party place, taped them to the wall and surrounded them with the sand pails and my son's many dinosaurs 

FOOD:  I made a menu on pasteboard and clipped it to my son's easel listing what they were having.  T-rex chicken tenders, Flying Pteradon french fries, plant eaters special veggies(carrots, celery etc.), Lava punch (red punch), molten lava cake (sheet cake with dino shaped candy) and volcano ice cream cups  This was a very fun party not only to plan but also for the kids.