Dinosaur Party -3yr- Inflatable Dino Decorations

Dinosaur Party 3yr old boy.  The birthday boy was obsessed with dinosaurs since he turned 2, so I had lots of time to plan. 

For invitations I made them on the computer with a photo program.  I put his picture in the middle and real looking dinosaurs on each side of him.  The top read:_________(child's name) saurus is turning 3!!! In smaller font it said: our little dinosaur is having a party.  We hope you can join us for a dino-mite time!  I printed them as 4x6 photos.  Everyone loved them and the kids loved looking at the picture.  We used our community center for free. 

For DECORATIONS: I bought the Diggin' for Dino's Party supply.  I got the mural, door sign, big birthday banner, table cloths, napkins, plates, and party blowers, and used orange forks and napkins also.  I bought a 72 pack of each orange, purple, and green balloons.  I used a helium tank to fill about 30 balloons, and just blew up the rest.  I made bunches of 6 balloons to hang on the ceiling and let some just float around on the floor.(looked cool, but was kind of hard getting rid of all of them at clean up time!)  I also had streamers in those colors. 

A couple of weeks before the party I cut out tons of dinosaur footprints from construction paper.  Some big(whole sheet), some small(4 to a sheet), but I  made about 8 different prints out of brown, purple, green, lime green, and orange paper.  They were placed on the floor and walls as though a dinosaur was walking around the party room.  We cut out pages from a dinosaur coloring book and taped them everywhere(they had pictures as well as dinosaur facts and information).  I used matching table cloth colors for the four other tables and placed foam dino masks on each table along with some of the birthday boys big dinosaur toys for balloon wieghts.  I bought a 4 foot inflatable dinosaur from oriental trading for $10 as well as the smaller 6 inflatable dinosaurs for $15 for more deocration. 

I also ordered an inflatable brontosauus and a triceratops from kippbro.com at about $4 each.  Some dinosaurs sat on the floor, others decorated the cake table and other tables.  The kids loved playing with them(and punching the big dinosaur)  A last minute decoration was a real dinosaur egg  A couple days before the party,  my little borther found a rock at the beach that really resembled a dinsaur egg.  It was about 9 inches long and looked like the egg from disneys dinosaur movie.  I put it on the cake table with a note card saying real iguanidon egg.  65 million years old.  Do not touch!  I joked and told people it  WAS real and that I bough it off of EBAY!.

The first of the ACTIVITIES was: to decorate their goody bags.  I  bought brown paper gift bags with handles.  The kids decorated them with foam dinosaur stickers from kippbro.com, dinosaur puffy stickers from target, and dinosaur stmaps from OTC.  They got to keep a stamp when they were finished. 

Then they played a couple GAMES:  I found game rings at the dollar store and used the birthday boys 2 foot tall brontosaurus toy as the target for a ring toss game.  The kids played till they won a prize: a dinosaur flossil necklace( $1.95/ dozen the boys loved these even more than the girls)

The other game was a ball throw.  I used one of those folding laundry hampers and some dinosaurs printed on construction paper.  The birthday boy helped tape the pictures on the hamper.  We then used pall pit balls to toss in the hamper.  Their prize was a lollypop with a paper dinosaur printout on it.  It looked as though the dinosaur was holding the lollypop.  I found these online and printed them off on colored constuction paper.  After games we ate meat-eaters delight(sloppy joes) and plant eaters special(salads)  and sanwhiches cut with a dino cookie cutter as well as other foods. 

After eating,  we had a DINO DIG.  We brought a sand box and filled it with fossils  I bought 6 dozen real looking 3 inch dino skeletons @ 1.95 a dozen from ustoy.com and a bag of 144 bright colored plastic 2 inch dinosaurs.  We also made fossils to burry in the sandbox.  I used the salt dough recipe to make teeth, bones, claws and fossil imprints.  For the imprints, I used the dinosaur fossil necklaces from USTOY.com  they're flat so they came out perfect.  I just made flat circles out of the salt dough and pressed the fossil necklaces down.  I did the same with toy dinosaurs to make foot prints. 

The kids loved the salt dough fossils the most, I suppose because they look kind of real after cracking a bit in the oven!  For digging I found some claw shovels 2 for $1 and bought 4 packs.  We also used paint brushes and small shovels.  I let the kids under five find 12 pieces first, then let the older kids join in.  They LOVED it.  They would did not want to leave the dig site for anything.  They found every single fossil and still wanted to dig. Even the adults got in on the digging. After the Dig we had 

CAKE:  for the cake I made a huge sheet cake and frosted it chocolate.  I used 2 ice cream cones(cut at different lengths) and 2 cup cakes for the volcanos.  I cut the tops off of the cup cakes and fliped them over,  then placed the ice cream cones on the top of the upside down cupcakes(using frosting as glue to hold them down)  I cut the tips off at different lenghts and frosted them brown.  The I used red piping for the lava coming down.  I used  red frosting to make rivers of lava between the volcanos.  I also made a lake with white frosting and blue food coloring, and stuck fake little trees around the lake. 

I  made a little dinosaur nest out of crushed grahm crackers and little dinosaur eggs( eggs made out of sugar from dinosaur instant oatmeal packets.  They actually have a little dinosaur inside of them)  Then I placed new 7 inch dinosaurs around the cake(the carnivores near the volcanos and the herbivores near the lake and nests) as well as some smaller dinosaurs.  The Birthday boy loved the cake, he sat by it and looked it over for awhile!  I also made cup cakes.  A batch of white and a batch of chocolate.  We decorated them with sprinkles and placed 3 small dinosaurs on each of them(USTOY.com)  I had planned for a volcano after cake, made out of a huge pile of dirt and fire works(the fountain kind) but the center prohibits fireworks.

So for the last activity, we hunted for giant dinosaur eggs.  We made them by covering 12 inch balloons with paper mache( 2 layers using a thick mix)  after they dried, I cut a hole to stuff them with goodies, then patched them up to dry, then painted them with tempra paints(blue, orange, white, and greens) We painted them with polka dots and speckles.  The birthday boy loved making them, painting them, and stuffing them with dinosaurs.  He explained they were real eggs!  They played egg snatcher and ran around looking for eggs while my little borther chased them with a dinosaur mask on.  Some of th kids' jaws dropped when the saw them and realized they could crack them open. 

They were supposed to wait to open them untill they got home, but the parents told me they smashed them open them as soon as they got in the car.  They were stuffed with 2 big dinosaurs(kippbro.com 3 dozen 7 inch dinosaurs for $13.  I used some of these dinosaurs on the cake) dinosaur fruit snacks, 4 little dinosaur eggs from OTC, dinosaur stickers, bubbles, tattoos,  mini dinos, & mini dinosaur puzzles. So they all got what was in their egg, at least 15 fossils from the dig, a lollypop and a dino necklace from the games, a dinsoaur stamp, a mask, a party blower, and a helium ballon to take home.  The babies that were there got a stuffed dinosaur from dollar stores(pastel colors for the baby girls, and darker colored ones for the boys)  with a bottle of dinosaur bubbles tied around the necks. 

The salt do was very easy to make.  You need 2 cups flour, 1 cup salt, & 1 cup warm water(not hot water)  mix the water and salt,  then add to flour.  Mix til it is all together & knead for 10 minutes.  It says to bake for an hour at 200 degrees F  but I had to leave them in longer(almost 2 hours).  One batch made about 35 pieces.  The dig was the biggest hit.  You could also burry other little prizes. I would have burried even more things if I would have known how much the kids liked it.  After all the pieces were found and they didn't want to quit, my uncle burried a handful of quarters in the sand box!  It was all a lot of fun. 

The party was a few weeks ago and kids are still talking about it.  Everyone is asking what we're going to do next year!