Are you looking for ways to extend and enrich children's learning with dinosaur play? 

Dinosaurs have long captured the imaginations of children, inspiring hours of creative play and curiosity about the prehistoric world. Whether they’re stomping through imaginary forests, hatching from eggs, or engaging in epic battles, dinosaurs offer endless possibilities for storytelling, exploration, and learning.

But did you know that dinosaur play can go beyond just fun? It’s also a fantastic way to support children’s development across multiple areas—from language and literacy to fine motor skills and scientific inquiry.

In this blog, we’ll explore more than 30 ways to extend and enrich children’s dinosaur play. We'll help you turn those roaring T-Rex and towering Brachiosaurus toys into tools for deeper learning. Whether you’re a parent, educator, or caregiver, these ideas will help you transform simple dinosaur games into rich, sensory, and imaginative play experiences that promote everything from problem-solving to social skills.

From sensory small world setups and dinosaur fossil excavations to crafting prehistoric landscapes and even creating your own dinosaur museum, there’s no shortage of ways to fuel your children's fascination with the Era of Dinosaurs.

You’ll also find ideas for extending literacy, building mathematical skills, and supporting fine motor development—all with the help of children's favorite dinosaurs.

1. Combine small world play with sensory play. Expand your small world setup by incorporating additional sensory elements. For example:

• Add water for rivers or lakes, allowing the dinosaurs to "drink" or "swim."
• Freeze small dinosaur toys inside ice cubes to simulate a frozen Jurassic landscape that children can explore as the ice melts.
• Introduce different textures like sand, dirt, or play dough to enhance sensory exploration.
• Incorporate sensory scents, like pinecones or herbs (lavender, rosemary), to represent prehistoric plants, enhancing multi-sensory engagement.

2. Press dinosaurs into salt dough or terracotta clay for fossils. To expand on this, you could:

• Create different types of fossils such as footprints, bones, or skin impressions.
• Let the children create their own “dinosaur skeletons” using sticks and other natural materials.
• After brushing off the fossils, children can categorize them into carnivores and herbivores or compare them to real fossil examples from books or online resources.

3. Match the dinosaurs to Dinosaur Cards

• Incorporate a scavenger hunt where children have to find a specific dinosaur from the cards in a small world setup or a classroom play area.
• Extend this activity by creating fact files for each dinosaur, encouraging children to write or draw facts about their chosen dinosaur, such as habitat, diet, and special features.

4. Sorting and classification. Take the sorting and classification further by:

• Encouraging children to sort by size, color, type (herbivore, carnivore, omnivore), or by the era they lived in (Jurassic, Triassic, Cretaceous).
• Create a timeline of dinosaurs using a string or tape on the ground to represent millions of years and have children place their dinosaurs in the correct timeframe.

5. Expand literacy and vocabulary using the dinosaur cards

• Create a dinosaur-themed alphabet game where each letter corresponds to a different dinosaur or prehistoric element.
• Build simple sentence structures using the dinosaur cards, such as "The [dinosaur name] lives in the forest and eats [food type]."
• Use the cards to help children engage in storytelling, describing what each dinosaur is doing in the small world play scene.

6. Small world play scene with natural materials

• Incorporate realistic environments by researching dinosaur habitats and then recreating desert, forest, or volcanic landscapes with sand, gravel, leaves, and branches.
• Set up a prehistoric waterhole with pebbles, a shallow bowl of water, and aquatic plants, and have dinosaurs visit to drink or hunt.
• Use different scales of dinosaurs to represent families or different generations.

7. Papier mache volcanoes for a personal 'Jurassic Park'

• Extend the learning by teaching children about real volcanoes and how they impacted dinosaurs’ environments. Have them simulate volcanic eruptions with dramatic storytelling about how the dinosaurs react.
• Turn the papier mache volcano into an ongoing project by adding new elements each week, such as more terrain, dinosaur shelters, or plant life.

8. Bicarbonate soda and vinegar volcanoes

• Incorporate a science experiment by discussing the chemistry behind the reaction and linking it to the environment the dinosaurs lived in.
• Add toy dinosaurs into the eruption zone to see how they react to the "lava" flowing down.

9. Pick a dinosaur and research its identity

• Create a "Dino of the Day" activity where each day a new dinosaur is researched. Children can present what they’ve learned to the group in their own "dinosaur report."
• Build a classroom or home "Dino Library" where children can store their research, drawings, and stories about the dinosaurs they've learned about.

10. Set up the dinosaurs in small world or garden and take photos

• Encourage children to create photo stories or comic strips by adding captions and speech bubbles to the photos, bringing their dinosaur adventures to life.
• Use the photos to make a personalized photo book or slideshow presentation that can be shared with family and friends.

11. Make a dinosaur museum

• Have children collect and display their dinosaur toys, fossils, and any artwork or research they’ve done. They can act as museum curators, explaining their exhibits to others.
• Add an interactive component where visitors to the "museum" can dig for fossils or play with small sensory bins featuring mini-dinosaurs.

12. Create a dinosaur diorama: Use shoe boxes or larger containers to create detailed dinosaur habitats. Add layers like hills, rivers, and foliage, and encourage children to create stories about what happens in their diorama.

13. Dinosaur Shadow Play: Use toy dinosaurs to create shadows on the wall with a flashlight or sunlight. Have children guess which dinosaur is casting the shadow and use this opportunity to talk about their physical features.

14. Dinosaur-Themed Counting and Math Games: Use dinosaurs for counting, comparing sizes, or grouping them into sets for early math skills. For example, "How many small dinosaurs can fit inside the volcano?" or "Sort the dinosaurs by size."

15. Dinosaur Footprint Walk: Create a path of dinosaur footprints (using paper cutouts or drawings) around a space. Children can walk, jump, or stomp along the path, pretending to be dinosaurs. This could also lead to discussions on how different dinosaurs might move.

16. Dinosaur Egg Hatch: Make "dinosaur eggs" by freezing small toy dinosaurs inside water balloons. Children can "hatch" the eggs by letting them melt or carefully chipping away at the ice.

17. Dinosaur Themed Yoga or Movement: Lead children in a series of dinosaur movements such as stomping like a T-Rex, stretching like a Brachiosaurus, or flying like a Pterodactyl 

18. Dinosaur Egg Excavation: Create “dinosaur eggs” using a baking soda and water paste molded around small toy dinosaurs. Once dry, children can "excavate" the dinosaurs by using tools like paintbrushes or spray bottles with vinegar to dissolve the eggs. This sensory activity also introduces them to simple chemical reactions.

19. Dinosaur Adventure Maps: Have children design their own dinosaur-themed adventure maps on paper or cardboard, guiding their dinosaur toys through jungles, caves, and volcanoes. Incorporate problem-solving tasks or challenges along the way, like crossing a "lava river" or escaping a predator.

20. Dinosaur-Themed Scavenger Hunt
Hide toy dinosaurs around your space or yard, and give children clues to find them. You could use descriptions like, “This dinosaur is hiding where the sun shines the brightest,” encouraging exploration and teamwork.

21. DIY Dinosaur Footprints
Make footprint stamps by cutting out sponge shapes or using large leaves dipped in paint. Children can use the prints to create dinosaur pathways on paper or fabric. This could lead into a discussion about how different dinosaurs left different-sized footprints based on their size and weight.

22. Create a Dinosaur Habitat in the Garden
Get children to plant small succulents, ferns, or even herbs in a dedicated area to represent a prehistoric jungle. Dinosaurs can “roam” this mini-ecosystem, and children can learn about how plants provide shelter and food.

23. Dinosaur Music and Movement: Create a fun, dinosaur-themed music and movement activity. Play jungle or forest soundtracks while children pretend to be dinosaurs roaming through the landscape. They can stomp, roar, fly, or crawl depending on the dinosaur they’re imitating. This encourages physical activity and coordination.

24. Dinosaur Story Stones: Paint or draw different dinosaurs, habitats, and elements (like volcanoes, caves, etc.) on smooth stones. Children can use these story stones to create their own dinosaur tales by arranging the stones in different sequences, promoting storytelling and language development.

25. Dinosaur Role-Playing: Have children pretend to be paleontologists, using magnifying glasses, brushes, and clipboards to "discover" and record details about dinosaur bones, eggs, or footprints you’ve hidden in the sand or sensory bins. You can enhance the experience by giving them simple data sheets to record their findings, introducing them to scientific inquiry.

26. Dinosaur-Themed Construction Play: Combine dinosaurs with building materials like blocks, Lego, or even natural materials (sticks, stones, etc.) to construct caves, fences, or shelters for the dinosaurs. Children can then use their creations in imaginative play, sparking both creativity and engineering skills.

27. Dinosaur Color Matching: Paint or print out dinosaurs in different colors. Children can then match these colored dinosaurs with objects from nature or around the house in a color-sorting game. This simple activity promotes color recognition and visual discrimination.

28. Dinosaur Ice Age: Freeze toy dinosaurs in blocks of ice (or as part of a sensory bin with ice cubes) and challenge children to "rescue" them using tools like warm water droppers, spoons, or small hammers. This activity can be part of a lesson on the Ice Age and the extinction of dinosaurs.

29. Dinosaur-Themed Play Dough Mats: Create dinosaur play dough mats with outlines of dinosaurs, fossils, or habitats, encouraging children to mold play dough onto the mats to create their own dinosaurs or landscapes. You can add texture with natural materials like twigs or leaves.

30. Dinosaur Fossil Puzzles: Create dinosaur “fossil” puzzles by cutting out dinosaur shapes from cardboard, breaking them into pieces, and hiding the pieces in sand, dirt, or a sensory bin. Children can “excavate” the pieces and then assemble the puzzle to reveal the dinosaur fossil.

31. Dinosaur Skeleton Craft: Use pasta or sticks to recreate dinosaur skeletons on black paper. Children can arrange and glue the pieces in the shape of a dinosaur skeleton, adding an art and creativity element to their dinosaur studies.

32. Dinosaur Name Recognition: Label your dinosaur toys with their species names, and encourage children to match the name labels with dinosaur pictures or cards. This promotes literacy, especially learning to recognize long and unique names.

33. Dinosaur Habitat Diorama: Expand the classic diorama idea by incorporating different environments for different dinosaur species, such as a forest, desert, or ocean. Add realistic details like miniature trees, rocks, and water features, encouraging children to think critically about how different dinosaurs adapted to different habitats.

34. Dinosaur Fossil Rubbings: Create fossil shapes or patterns on paper by placing toy dinosaurs or fossil molds under a piece of paper and rubbing with a crayon. Children can explore texture, pattern recognition, and artistic expression through this simple activity.

35. Dinosaur Classification Chart: Make a large chart where children can classify dinosaurs into categories such as herbivores, carnivores, bipeds, quadrupeds, or by era (Jurassic, Triassic, etc.). This could lead to discussions on evolution, survival, and extinction.

36. Dinosaur-Themed Board Game: Create a simple board game where players move their dinosaur pieces through various obstacles or challenges (like crossing a river or climbing a mountain). Add facts or trivia questions about dinosaurs to enhance learning during play.

37. Create a Dinosaur Shadow Puppet Show: Use dinosaur-shaped cutouts attached to sticks and a light source to create shadows on a wall. Children can put on a shadow puppet show, telling stories of their dinosaurs interacting with one another.

38. Dinosaur Nest Play: Have children build “nests” for dinosaur eggs using natural materials such as sticks, leaves, and moss. They can then pretend the eggs are hatching, leading to discussions about dinosaur life cycles.

Virtual Museum Dinosaur Adventures

The amazing thing about play and learning these days is our ability to access information at our fingertips! You and your little palaeontologist can explore the world of dinosaurs from your own home. Here are some fabulous places we've found that you might like to explore:

• Dinosaur Fact Sheets from the Australian Museum 
• Dinosaurs and their relatives from the Australian Museum 
• Learn about Australia's dinosaurs, another offering from the Australian Museum.
• American Museum of Natural History
• Fossil Hunt: From the site: “Join us now for an online egg hunt and catch the excitement of fossil researchers as they ‘hatch’ fossilized dinosaur eggs to reveal the embryos inside. Tour our museum of dinosaur hatchlings and meet the modelers.”
• Are you ready for an online adventure? There are many to choose from at this wonderful collection of resources!
• Discovery Dinosaur Central: Some Dino aggression animated or pictured; very compelling!
• Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History: Don’t miss the interactives, including a wonderful virtual dinosaur dig and virtual museum tour.
• Canadian Museum of Nature: Virtual Dino games and activities.
• National History Museum Dino links. Cool 3-D Dino's!