Most children love hearing about, reading about and playing with dinosaurs. Here are two suggestions for invitations to play with dinosaurs I prepared for our face-to-face playful visits this week.

I used salt instead of sand because most people will have this at home. You can re-use it later and make playdough as well (see previous posts for recipe).

I added a few plastic dinosaurs, rocks, some greenery, small spoons and recyclable containers for scooping out salt and brushes  so that we can”uncover” our dinosaurs much like paleontologists do when they discover dinosaurs. I added a piece of chalk too, as children play they will churn the chalk in the salt, grinding it down and making the salt change colour! Children have fun while building  strength in their hand, enabling different grips and eye hand control. Enjoy their glee once they watch the miracle of salt changing colour.

This invitation to play keeps children focused and engaged for a really long time.

You can also use the coloured chalk to do a bit of art together. You would need a a bottle of glue and a piece of paper. They can squeeze the glue and sprinkle colourful salt on top. Then shake off the access salt and you will have a colourful picture.  As a side note: for younger children glue in itself is a big learning opportunity: watching it pour out, feeling the stickiness, smearing it on the paper.

Here is another fun and playful idea. I placed few dinosaurs and some plastic plants in a plastic bowl, covered with water and put it in the freezer.

This is another way of “uncovering” the dinosaurs. You can provide some objects to scrape or chip off the ice ( I offered some forks, spoons and metallic loose parts).  You can do it again with different plastic or natural objects you collected.

How does ice feel? What happens if we put some salt on the ice? What If you use some eye droppers to put some water on the block of ice? Where does the ice go? Children can learn about world around them by discovering  science through play.

Enjoy!