Dinosaur Party -5yr- Dino Bean Bag Toss

For our son's 5th birthday party he really wanted a dinosaur theme as he's in love with dinosaurs! So here is what I did. 

INVITATIONS: I downloaded cracked font" which makes the font look very prehistoric. I downloaded a bunch a different dinosaurs like a stegosaurus t rex and a pterodactyl from Google images. I then wrote "Get ready for a roaring good time come on over to Tanner's Dino-mite birthday bash. On the next line I wrote "Don't be extinct & make tracks to our cave(address): Stomp Time: 2:00 RSVP to the prehistoric parents. At the bottom I wrote "TANNER-O-SAURUS is turning 5!  FOOD: I made labels for all the food by printing out pics and using Mword. I also made a menu with the list of food again with pics of dinosaurs. I made: dinosaur deviled eggs Ceratops Chips Sandwichsauruses Jellosauruses Triceratops Horns (Bugles) Dino Dogs(hot dogs) Bronto Burgers Pasta Raptor Salad Fruit-a-saurus salad and served Stega Soda.  

DECORATIONS: I drew large footprints on a piece of paper then copied the paper and cut them out. You could make the footprints any color you choose brown or green. I printed out signs that had a picture of a dinosaur on it and said "dinosaur crosssing". I hung the signs on the front door and throughout the house. We hung green and white balloons and green and white streamers throughout the house. 

ACTIVITIES & GAMES: We played Stegosaurus Surprise Spikes. This is my very own creation! I made a pinata out of flour and water about 3 feet long with the tail. First we pulled the strings on the pinata and got the candy out. I hot glued the strings to the bottom of the pinata so they would come off very easily. The one string that opened the pinata was paper mached into the pinata so required a tad more strength…easy to do! The pinata was painted green. I paper mached about 36 spikes so every child could have two turns. The spikes were all hot glued on again so the kids could pull the spikes off easily. The object of this game was to find a sticker. Since I paper mached the spikes I put a sticker in a spike so when a child would pull the spike off there would be a dinosaur sticker showing. They would win. This game I love because nobody gets hurt there is no strategy. It's all luck so the big kids aren't always winning. For the eyes on the pinata I used a bouncy ball cut it in half then painted the black eyes.

NEXT GAME: Dino Bean Bag Toss. Out of plywood I painted three large dinosaurs on the board. All of the dinosaurs I had their mouths that appeared to be open so it looked like when you were throwing the bean bags that they were eating them! I had three different size holes large medium and small. I scored 12 and 3 points. Each person got to throw the bag 3 times. 

Next Game: Prehistoric Egg Hatching is what I called this. I bought a dinosaur bowling set from Target. It came with 6 dino pins and two balls(eggs). Out of 1" piping I paper mached it to look like branches and wrapped brown construction paper around each pipe(branch). I cut the shapes of leaves on green construction paper and hot glued them to the brown construction paper. I got a water cooler and put one piping in the cooler with rocks in the bottom to hold up the pipe. I paper mached the branches to the big tree trunk. Be sure to let the paper mache dry for at least 12 hours. Finally I paper mached little holders to hold the 6 dinosaur pins. I shaped them like half cracked eggs in the front then paint them white. So all in all you have 6 branches. I had the kids stand back and throw the balls at the eggs if they knocked a pin out of the holder then you hatched an egg(1 point). They got three throws. This was a very popular and fun game! Although it took a lot of time with the paper mache.

NEXT GAME: Pass the Dino. Very simple. I got easter eggs and filled 12 with mini dinosaurs and 2 with eggs. I started the music when the music stopped if you got the egg with the eggs in them you're out! So if you got an egg with a dinosaur or no egg…you are still in. This was great because we had 26 kids and knocking two people out at a time made it go by quickly. In the end when there were 3 kids left we made sure there was only 1 egg and 2 dinosaurs. Note: make sure all eggs are same color/shape so the kids have no idea where the egg is.

ACTIVITY: Out of cheap plywood I painted a scene that had a stream a few dinosaurs and a volcano in the background. I painted "Prehistoric Tattoo Parlor" across the top. I purchased dinosaur tattoos from Ebay. They came with 6 different dinosaurs. I took the tattoos to my copier copied them and had them enlarged. I then cut them out and put the onto the plywood scene I painted. No joke the dinosaurs blended completely in with the background. People thought I painted the dinosaurs on their. Best part is they matched the tattoos. The whole object of this was so when kids were done playing Musical Eggs they would go get a tattoo at the Prehistoric Tattoo Parlor. Worked out great because the kids weren't impatient standing in a group waiting. There was only 1-2 waiting at a time.  I had picked up prizes at the $1 store they have tons of dinosaurs items. I put all the prizes in a basket so when a child would win they picked out a prize. In the end every child got to pick out a little gift so nobody was left out. 

PRESENT TIME: Out of paper mache and cardboard I created this huge dinosaur mouth 6 feet by 4.5 feet. I paper mached it so it was strong. I had an upper jaw of the dinosaur and a lower jaw. I really got into the details again a large bouncy ball for the eye cut out 10" teeth(14 teeth on the bottom jaw and 14 teeth on the top jaw. The dinosaur mouth appeared to be open(the plan). I got some wire and wired the jaw so it would stay open and hammered it to my wall. I also put two 2x4's in there to hold the upper jaw up then put a gray sheet to cover the wood. This was our present opening area. At all of our parties my pictures always have other children's heads in the way so I thought I'd resolve the problem so nobody could come near the birthday boy. So we put two little chairs in the mouth along with all the presents. His little brother handed him the presents and he opened them. This was my best idea I thought. I received so many compliments on this. I also got two pieces of cardboard 5 foot each and drew the rest of the dinosaur body on it so it appeared it was running. I painted it the same matching gray color and attached the two 5 foot pieces with wire. You couldn't even tell that they were two pieces of cardboard. 

GOODY BAGS: I took the image from the invite and used it to make labels for the playdoh chalk and glow sticks. I also threw in some dinosaur fruit snacks in the bag. Each bag got these items along with dinosaur stickers. The bags were brown paper bags. I bought flash-cards at Target 50 cards for $1. Each card had a different dinosaur on it. I hot glued one card on the front of each bag. I put a dinosaur label(green) aPlaydohcross the top of the bag to seal it shut…again so many compliments. Each bag costed me about .41 cents to make! Came 8 to a pack for $1 glow-sticks were 15 to a pack for .60 cents chalk was 52 chalks for $2.50 fruit snacks were .79 cents for 8 packs. Purchased most items on discount or at Michael's craft store with a coupon. 

CAKE: I made a cake on a flat sheet printed a dinosaur image from the internet cut out the image put it on the cake and cut out the image. Very easy to do. I frosted the cake just like the image. I also made dinosaur cupcakes and drew little hatching eggs on them. 

THANK YOU CARDS: Printed out the same image as the invites so they matched and said thanks for making my party dino mite! I also made sure I took a picture of each child and put it in with their invitation so they could remember the party. To do this day the kids at my son's preschool are still talking about his party!! This is hard to explain but if you seen the photos you would literally be impressed! This whole party costed me about $70 with all the food decorations etc."