We just wrapped up our first week of DIY Summer Camp {Camp Mom} with some simple crafts and activities for Dinosaur Week. This was a super fun theme and did not require a whole lot of prep on my part. We could have done way more activities, but the whole point of the DIY Summer Camp is to keep it simple for a stress free summer!
This post does include affiliate links. That means I could earn a tiny portion of any sale that is made through clicking on any of these products with no additional cost to you. All support is greatly appreciated!
Dinosaur Toys provide lots of fun for easy activities!
If you plan to do a Dinosaur Week, you really only need to purchase some plastic toy dinosaurs. This one simple toy provided lots of fun for the week. If you have a dinosaur lover in your house, you may already have quite the collection!
Dinosaur Books
About a week before the theme started, I went through my Pinterest Board to pick out some fun dinosaur books to add to our library list. I like to change out our reading shelves regularly anyway. Our two favorites for the week were I Wanna Be A Great Big Dinosaur and If a T. Rex Crashes Your Birthday Party.
Easy to create fossil cookies.
We also made dinosaur fossil cookies from Ready to Bake Sugar Cookie Dough. It doesn’t get much easier than this! You bake the cookies and then press mini dinosaur figures into them once they come out of the oven.
Dino Nuggets for the win!
And….can you really have Dinosaur Week without Dino Nuggets? The kids thought this was super special and made lunch time a breeze for me!
Creative Dinosaur Themed Play Ideas
One of the best parts about having a theme is seeing the kids come up with ideas of their own! When I got out the mini dinosaurs for the cookies, Graylie really wanted to play with them. I only needed a couple for our cookies so I gave here the rest. She pulled out her kinetic sand tray and asked if she could play with them in the sand. Of course I said yes! I was getting ready to start dinner so that was the perfect activity for her to do. I’m sure I’m not alone when I say dinner time can sometimes be stressful.
Our main craft for Dinosaur Week was DIY Painted Dinosaur Fossils. We made these from Salt Dough using the plastic dinosaur toys. This is a super cool craft project and I really enjoyed painting them.
Once we had the Dinosaur Fossils completed, we added them to our Backyard Dinosaur World that we had been working on throughout the week. The is the same concept as a fairy garden. It is excellent for imaginative play and the kids really did a great job working together to build it.
Dinosaur Hunt
Once we had the Dinosaur World complete, I decided it would be fun to hide the dinosaurs around the yard and tell the kids that the dinosaurs had escaped overnight! Gavin really gets into the Jurassic Park movies so I knew he would really enjoy this.
I think the Dinosaur Hunt may have been their favorite activity of the week! They wanted me to hide them a few more times and then they also hid them for me. It was really fun!
I can honestly say that I am a little sad to see Dinosaur Week come to an end. I’m also a little worried the other weeks will not be able to compare. There are so many other crafts and projects that we didn’t get to that would be fun too. Dinosaur Week will definitely need to make a comeback next summer!
For now we are gearing up for 4th of July Week though! I decided to start that on Wednesday since the 4th of July falls in the middle of next week. Be sure to follow us on Facebook or Instagram if you want to keep up with all the Patriotic Fun we’ll be having!
