Dinosaur Birthday Party Ideas

Dinosaur birthday party is ideal theme for kid's special celebration. Your guests will be thrilled to be a part of it!

Let's take a closer look at some of the ideas including invitations, decorations, games, party food, and favors.

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You can make dinosaur birthday invitations simple or full of detail, the choice is yours. I find that the following invitations don't require a lot of time to prepare and produce a great impression on the dinosaur birthday party guests.

Cut out pictures of dinosaurs from children's coloring books, and write the dinosaur birthday party details on the backs. Enclose the pictures inside plastic eggs (available from hobby or toy stores). Decorate the eggs with markers or put the dinosaur stickers on them. Hand deliver or mail the invitations in small padded boxes.

Cut out a large egg shape from white construction paper and write your dinosaur birthday party information on the rim. Stick the invitation into a large envelope, along with a small plastic dinosaur, and mail it to your party guests.

Here's another idea for dinosaur birthday invitations. Make pop-up invitations that look like eggs, with surprise baby dinosaurs inside. Fold a white sheet of paper in half. Cut out an egg shape, leaving one end of the egg connected. Cut out a small dinosaur picture (or have a dinosaur sticker) to fit inside the egg. Fold the dinosaur in half, glue the bottom of the dinosaur to the inside bottom of the egg. And glue the top of the dinosaur to the inside top of the egg. When you open the egg, the dinosaur will unfold. Write the dinosaur birthday party details around the dinosaur.

On the dinosaur party invitations you can write something like "Breaking News! Dinosaurs have been spotted at (your last name) house! Join the discovery as we celebrate (your child's name) birthday."

Here is another way of wording your dinosaur birthday party invitations: "(Your child's name) invites you to join him (her) and other expert paleontologists for a Birthday Dinosaur Dig Party on (date), from (time). You'll be sure to uncover a dino-mite time of food, fun, and games...and some dinosaurs too! Don't be extinct! Please RSVP to his (her) prehistoric parents at (phone number)."

Green, royal blue, brown and yellow are best colors for your dinosaur party decorations.

Create a prehistoric feel to your dinosaur birthday party right from your driveway by having colored dinosaur footprints drawn on the driveway in chalk. As a variation, cut out dinosaur footprints out of brown paper and tape them all over the walkway leading to your house.

Decorate your front yard with paper streamers and balloons (preferably green). Hang up large pictures or posters of dinosaurs outside the house and in the dinosaur birthday party room.

Set out dry ice in the room. Make a volcano from large sheets of construction paper. Hang it on the wall. CAUTION: Be extremely careful with dry ice! It shouldn't be ingested or touched with bare hands (wear heavy gloves).

Cover your dinosaur birthday party table with a colorful dinosaur tablecloth. Have a "dinosaur" balloon for your table centerpiece.

If you're having your party inside, arrange furniture in a circle. Drape old sheets and blankets over the furniture to create a cave. Let the kids eat and play games inside the mega cave.

Another idea for decorating your room or yard is to have small glass jars made to fit the prehistoric scene. Fill jars about 1/4 or 1/3 full with potting soil. Place a small plant (or leaves of a leafy vegetable like kale). Sprinkle with aquarium gravel. Place a plastic dinosaur near the plant. Add about a teaspoon of water and place the lid on the jar.

Greet kids with big dinosaur birthday party welcome. Provide them with small plastic shovels and dinosaur stickers.

*Dinosaur Tattoo Station: Organize a party area where arriving guests receive a washable dinosaur tattoo on some part of their body.

*Dinosaur Coloring Books: Have children pick their favorite dinosaur from a coloring book. Ask them to color it while waiting for the other guests to arrive.

*Prehistoric Playtime: Set up a prehistoric play area that guests go to as they arrive and return to between activities. Children will love creating new scenes and acting out dinosaur encounters. Fill a sandbox or wading pool with slightly damp sand. Place toy dinosaurs, rocks, buckets, shovels, spoons, leaves, and twigs on the sand. Make palm trees by gluing green tissue pieces to the tops of paper towel tubes and stand them up in the sand. Bury bones and plastic dinosaurs. Invite your dinosaur birthday party guests to dig for "fossils."

You can have some fun with dinosaur party favors. Send the kids home with toy dinosaurs, dinosaur pictures or coloring books, and dinosaur t-shirts. You might also find books about dinosaurs to give away as favors.

*Dinosaur Egg Hunt: Take plastic eggs. Paint each one light and dark brown with a safe water-based latex paint. Fill eggs with dinosaur treats - a rubber dinosaur toy, a dinosaur-shaped piece of candy or dinosaur stickers. Before the start of your dinosaur birthday party, hide the eggs in your backyard. Make sure to pick places that are easy to reach but hard to see.

You can also let the kids use dinosaur "footprints" (drawn on the driveway or walkway) to guide children in their egg hunt. The eggs could be of different color for each child, and the footprints could be of different color coordinated with a color of the egg. They have to follow dinosaur footprints to find their eggs. If your dinosaur birthday party is indoors, hide the eggs in different rooms around the house.

*Which Dino am I?: On small pieces of paper, write names of famous dinosaurs (T-Rex, Triceratops, Apatosaurus, and so on) and put them in a bowl. Take turns picking a name from the bowl and acting out the dinosaur. Guests can ask "yes or no" questions to help figure out the answer.

*The Big Fossil Dig: Place plastic dinosaurs in several 1/2-pint milk cartons. Fill cartons with plaster of Paris. Let harden overnight. At the dinosaur birthday party, provide kids with simple tools to uncover their dinosaur "fossils".

*Stegosaurus Toss: You'll need a cardboard box, pretzels, and one 12-inch dowel (1/8-inch diameter), cut into 3 pieces. Paint face of stegosaurus on the front of the cardboard box. Poke dowels through to make "horns" and tape on to secure. Set stegosaurus on table and let each guest have a turn tossing 6 pretzels onto the horns.

*Lava Flow: Divide group into two teams and have them stand in line. Place 2 large buckets full of water at beginning of each line and 2 large empty buckets at end of each line. Give each guest a cup. On the count of three, have them transfer the water from the full bucket to the empty bucket by passing the water from cup to cup. The first team to transfer the water successfully wins.

*Carnivores vs. Herbivores: This is a fun dinosaur birthday party game to play outside. Divide the guests into two teams, the Carnivores and the Herbivores. Give each Carnivore a small sheet of dinosaur stickers. When you say "Go", the Carnivores chase the Herbivores. A Herbivore is "caught" when a Carnivore places a sticker on his or her back. The Herbivore must "freeze" until another Herbivore releases him or her by removing the sticker. Play until the Carnivores run out of stickers. Distribute stickers to the Herbivores and repeat the game.

*Dino-mite T-Shirts: This is a great dinosaur theme birthday party activity for your gathering. Try it yourself before the party, so you can teach the kids how to do it. You will need white T-shirts, self-adhesive shelf paper, fabric paint, paper plates, small sponges. Cut shelf paper into 6" or 7" squares - one to three cutouts per guest. Draw or trace dinosaurs on the paper pieces. Use sharp scissors to cut dinosaur shapes from the squares, creating stencils.

Lay the t-shirts flat and insert a thick layer of newspaper inside each. Peel the backs from the shelf-paper stencils and place the dinosaur stencils on each shirt. Pour fabric paint on paper plates. Dampen and wring out sponges. Dip a sponge in fabric paint and blot the cutout dinosaur. Remove the stencils carefully when the paint has set (about 15 minutes). Allow paint to dry thoroughly before wearing t-shirts.

*Disappearing Dinosaurs: This is a reverse of Hide-and-Seek game. The person who is "It" is the one who hides - the rest of the children look for him. The child who found the hiding person joins him or her in the next round of hiding. One by one the "dinosaurs" disappear. The last kid left remaining from the original group of "seekers" is "It", and will be hiding alone next time for others to find him or her.

*Dinosaur Gossip: Before the dinosaur birthday party, write short, funny sentences that include the names of dinosaurs (Like, "A Triceratops' teeth chew tough treats"). Invite kids to sit in a circle. Choose one of the sentences and whisper it only once to the player sitting to your right. The player must then whisper what he or she thinks was said to the person to his or her right. This is repeated around the circle. The last person says out loud what she or he heard. Read the original sentence to compare.

*Hatch-the-Dinosaur-Eggs Relay: Before the dinosaur birthday party, carefully place small plastic dinosaurs or dinosaur stickers inside the balloons. Then blow the balloons up and tie them off. (Blow lots of balloons - kids will want to play this game several times.) Divide the group into two equal teams and encourage children to name their teams with favorite dinosaur names. Place the balloons on the floor or ground at one end of the play area.

Line up the teams behind the marker at the other side of the play area. (If playing outdoors, tie string to the balloons and anchor them to keep them from blowing away.) When a signal is given, the first person on each team runs to the balloons and "hatches" one by sitting or stomping on it. No hands allowed!

The player retrieves the dinosaur or the sticker, runs back to the team, and tags the next person, who repeats the "egg hatching". The first team to complete the "hatching" wins the game. To make the game more challenging, add mini-obstacle course items, like cardboard boxes to crawl through or buckets to jump over.

*Don't Wake the Dino: Choose one player to be the dinosaur. Have him or her lie down on a towel on the ground. Set plastic eggs with a prize inside all around the Dinosaur. Have the Dinosaur close his eyes and pretend to be asleep. One at a time, the players must approach the sleeping Dinosaur and try to steal one of the prize eggs. If the Dinosaur opens his or her eyes and grabs the player, that player becomes the next sleeping Dinosaur and the Dinosaur gets the prize.

*Hot Lava: This is a great game for dinosaur birthday parties. Create an obstacle path around the yard. Use items that the kids can step on or climb on, such as a large rock, a small chair, a large shoe, a piece of paper, a short ladder, and so on. Set the items close to each other but still challenging to reach. Have the kids cross the yard by stepping only on the items. Anyone who touches the "hot lava" - or ground - is out.

*Lost in the Jungle: Blindfold one child. Walk him or her to a distant part of the yard. Spin the kid around, and tell the player to find his or her way back to the group. Repeat with all the players, starting them from different part of the yard. Award prizes to the kids who return to "civilization" the fastest.

*The Dinosaur Egg Cake: Bake two white cakes, one in a 9" round pan and one in a 9" square pan. After both cakes have cooled to room temperature, cut the round cake into two equal halves. Place those halves on opposite sides of the square cake. You have just created an egg-shaped cake. Next, carefully cover your egg cake with light brown frosting. Finally, using the dark brown frosting, make a jagged line across the egg from one end to the other. You have just developed a great dinosaur cake pattern. It will look like the egg is cracking and the baby dinosaur is coming out!

*Dinosaur Cake: Bake a rectangular cake. Cut the cake in half lengthwise and lay one half onto a serving plate. Using a zigzag cut, slice the remaining half into two large triangles and a number of small triangles to form dinosaur head, tail, and spikes. Place the spikes on top of whole half, and place large triangles at the head and tail. Frost the cake with green or chocolate frosting. Use sprinkles or candy to create details for face, feet, and tail. Serve dinosaur birthday cake to carnivores.

*Volcano Cake: Bake cake in a well-greased oven-proof bowl. Bake it a little longer than called for in the directions, until it is done in the middle. Remove cake from bowl and turn over onto a large round plate. Frost it with chocolate icing, leaving the top bare. Frost the top with red frosting, using tubes of icing. Stick thin red licorice whips into the top of the cake, shooting out like hot erupting lava. Tint shredded coconut green with food coloring and sprinkle around the plate. Add plastic toy dinosaurs for decoration.

Take a look at another idea for a dinosaur cake.

*Dino-mite Sandwiches: Make a variety of dinosaur-shaped sandwiches using dinosaur cookie cutters, bread and kids' favorite fillings.

Dino Dip

*Herbivore Dino-Dip: Mash 2 or 3 avocados in a bowl. Add 1 cup mayo, 1 cup sour cream, garlic salt, and lemon juice. Mix well. Serve this tasty dip with chips and vegetables.

*Dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets (e.g. Dr. Praeger's® Vegetarian chicken nuggets available at your local supermarket)

*Brontosaurus Burgers: Make some tasty burgers for the dinosaur birthday party guests. Call the ketchup "hot lava", the mustard "jungle paste", and the relish "algae".

*Ice Age Pops: Fill ice pop molds with lemonade. Add a few dinosaur candies (gummy dinosaurs) and freeze overnight. If you do not have molds, pour lemonade into small paper cups and cover with plastic wrap. Poke craft sticks through the plastic for handles. Peel off the paper when the pops are frozen.

*Dinosaur Jell-O Eggs: Cut off the top of an egg, pour it out, and rinse the shell. Insert a small edible dinosaur into each shell. Mix Jell-O according to package directions, and pour into the egg shells. Cool the filled eggs in the refrigerator. After the Jell-O sets, have your dinosaur birthday party guests crack the eggs open and eat the surprise inside. (Warn the kids to eat carefully, because the Jell-O contains a surprise.) Handle the Jell-O dinosaur eggs carefully so they don't break before the Jell-O sets!

*Dinosaur Yogurt: Serve yogurt with pictures of dinosaurs on containers (e.g. Dannon Danimals® Yogurt).

*Deep Sea Jell-O: Mix blue-colored gelatin, pour it into an aquarium bowl or a large clear bowl, and add "prehistoric" Gummy fish. Allow to set and then serve to the dinosaur birthday party paleontologists.

*Dinosaur Crackers from Ritz®

*Green colored lemonade or soda pop with green food coloring

*Orange Lavaburst® Fruit Punch by Minute Maid®