Dinosaur Party -4yr- Five Foot Tall Dino

Dinosaur party for 4 year old Length of party: 2 hours and 30 minutes.  Used dinosaur invitations that I bought from the store. 

Front of house decorations:  green, yellow, orange streamers representing hanging vines.  Vinyl dino footprints leading from the driveway to the front door.  Dino footprint sign stating Stephen's Birthday Party.  On the front door, sign stating "Beware Entering the Dino Zone:.  In the House:  Streamers throughout the house.  A giant 5 Ft. T-Rex(found at the Discovery Store) to greet the children.  Each child took a photo with the T-Rex, included in their thank you cards.  Several of the kids "hammed" it up and looked like they were scared of the dino.  Also, two mylar balloons- t-rex and apatosaurus from Albertson.  Small balloons that I made into dino faces ( can find this idea at Family Fun ). 

The Party:

1.  Each child received a dino wood cut (from Michael's) which I attached some cording, to wear around their necks.  They each became their favorite dino, example, Stephenraptor, or S-Rex.

2.  Brown lunch sacks, decorated with dino stamps.  For collecting of game prizes.

3.  Brown lunch sacks, and some coloring sheets with a T-Rex on it.  We transformed these into paper bag puppets.    Dino music playing:  Wiggles, Raffi, "Dinosaur Rock in Roll". Used the dino footprints as place marker to sit in a large circle. We sort of played musical "dinoprints", more of a group dancing session. Also, I read a short story on dinosaurs and finding their bones. 

Games:

1.  Hatch the dinosaur-  Kids tried to sit on and break a balloon with a tiny dinosaur in it. 

2.  Dino Egg and Spoon race-  Kids crawled to the dino egg nest and bought an egg back using a spoon.  The Easter egg was filled with a tiny dino and some goo ( Zoom website).

3.  Dino ring toss-  A small T-rex blow-up, used embrodiery hoops to toss around its neck.

4.  Pin the horn the the Triceratops-   I drew the head of a triceratops and the kids tried to place the colored contruction paper horns in the right spot.  Kids thought the dino looked very funny when finished.

5.  Dino Pinata-  What I did was that I placed tiny dinos and fruit snacks into individual zip lock bags.  When the pinata broke, they looked for their own names on the bags.  Everyone had the same things in their bags and nobody left crying.

6.  Dino Dig-  First, my older daughter explained to the boys how scientists find the dino bones. Then we used our sandbox to hide the bones before the party. I used plaster of paris and made a cast of T-rex bones from a sand mold kit.  Each child used a large paint brush to find the bones.  We told the kids that since we didn't have a museum to donate the bones that we would donate them to the preschool were they all went to since they were studying about dinosaurs.  They liked this a lot.  

Cake and Presents: I used a T-Rex Wilton cake pan for the cake. Tiny dinos around the cake and a paper volcano. Found Dino candles at my grocery store.  Punch:  Dinosaur Lava Punch -  Friut Punch, 7-up, and Lime Sherbet.  Circle with dino prints and we opened presents and passed them around.  Watched a video while waiting for parents to pick up called "Digging for Dinos". 

Goody bags:   Each child left with their brown stamped bag, plus another dino goody bag that a sheet of stickers, a fizzy dino bath egg (Walmart), light up dino (Target), and a few more tiny dinos.  I also found at the dollar store these giant big book with dinosaurs teaching the ABC's.  The extra goody bag stuff was about $4.00 for each kid. 

Everyone loved the party, especially the birthday boy!