Dramatic play is so valuable – it’s one of those educational areas I don’t ever want to stop providing – okay, or doing myself, too! Whether for your little kids or you little kids at heart, dramatic play helps develop friendships, fosters creativity and deepens imaginations, and creates opportunities for further growth and learning in other academic areas.
This post is dedicated to dressing up like dinosaurs, and the perfect dinosaur books and activities to use with them while playing!
I have a little dinosaur lover here at home who wanted SO badly to be a dinosaur for Halloween last year. I made this little costume for her, and it has been THE easiest costume I’ve ever made her to date! Almost the entire project (tail and hoodie) use hot glue, and very little sewing was involved.
I’ve linked the very easy and informative tutorials below, if you’d like to learn how to make them!
We’ve done lots of different things aside from just playing (and trick-or-treating) with this little costume. It now hangs on a dress-up rack (thanks, Hubby!) we use regularly at play time.
Here’s my list of books and activities to enhance your child’s dinosaur dress-up experience!
Wear the dinosaur costume while singing the Dinosaur Stomp – check out more Dinosaur Stomp song extensions here!
Utilize the costume outdoors. It’s amazing how going down the slide or swinging AS as dinosaur can change the whole outlook! See if your child can glide like a pterodactyl while running or stomp like a T-rex while playing tag.
Read the book “Dinorella” – or watch and listen here -and play out your own version! You could even pull out extra dress up clothes for the ball part of the story. For fair warning, you may want to use your best judgment and caution in the carnivore part! 😀
Put on a dress-up relay. You could do this three different ways.
- If you’ve got an only child, time them on how fast they can put on and remove the hoodie and tail. See if they can beat their own scores!
- For a single dino costume and multiple kids, have the kids line up and put on/remove the costume as quickly as they can. When one is finished, the whole costume goes to the next person in line. See if the whole line of kids can beat their own score!
- If you have multiple costumes and kids, you could simply have a contest to see who can put on/remove it the fastest!
Have a dinosaur tea party. Add leafy sandwiches for tasty dinosaur crunching and some weakly brewed peppermint tea in kid-safe cups (or even pretend plastic dish ware) for sipping. If you want to get fancy, create some dinosaur tea party themed invites and have some friends join you in their costumes! You could make this as low-key or delightfully involved as you want!
Take your little dinosaur(s) to the library to hunt for How Do Dinosaurs… books. We absolutely cannot get enough of these titles. One week I let Bundle check out every title in this series that our local library had! For extra fun, see if your child can play out some of the actions the dinosaurs in the book do (tossing a napkin on the floor, then putting in nicely in the trash…making an angry face and stomping her feet, then using her manners and smiling…etc.)
We still use our little dinosaur costume all the time, and I’m SO glad I took the couple of hours (yes, that’s it!) to make it.
Hope these ideas help you and your little dinosaur have even more fun!
❤
a fresh brewed faith 