I joined a loop on Instagram with a “Prehistoric” theme. Originally, I thought it would be a small break from our pond/ Earth Day play, but when I think about it – dinosaurs fit in pretty well with Earth Day themes. What better reminder of how fragile life on the planet can be and then how quickly it can be extinguished.
For this tray, I used our felt Papoose Volcano and Olli Ella Dinos along with a variety of different sensory mixes. The grass is rice and unsweetened coconut that I dyed with food colouring. I just mixed some blue and yellow food colouring, added a splash of vinegar so it would be easier to spread around and poured it into the bowl of coconut. The coconut required more food colouring to turn green than the rice, but the smell of it is amazing and well worth the effort.
The speckled rocks are dry pinto beans, the lava is made from red lentil and the pond and stream is our felt pond piece along with some aquarium gravel. I am new to the concept of using aquarium gravel in sensory play, but i’m loving the colour variation and texture so far. I put a few white lima beans around the river as a river rock bed.
Then I added in some fake vegetation pieces, trees and rocks. I used a small amount of floral foam to hold some of the bunches together. Finally, it was time to add dinos, dino eggs, lizards and bury our Yellow Door Education dinosaur footprint stones.
To add an extra learning element to the activity, I made a Search and Count card for the kids so they could discover and count the various elements. I will include the link here if you’d like to download it.
Materials
- Tuff Tray (Scholar’s Choice)
- Dry rice, lentils, pinto beans, lima beans, coconut (Bulk Barn)
- Aquarium Gravel – used 3 bags (Amazon)*
- Rocks, vegetation (Dollarama)
- Papoose felt volcano
- Olli Ella Dinosaurs
- Sewing Seeds Play** felt eggs
- Grimm’s wood stacking bowl
- Sewing Seeds Play** felt palm trees
- Raduga Grez wood trees
- Yellow Door Education Let’s Investigate Dinosaur Footprint (Sewing Seeds Play**)
- Yellow Door Rustic Pourers (turned upside down) (Sewing Seeds Play**)
- Dinosaur Search & Count Card (DIY)
*As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
** Save at Sewing Seeds Play with code HOUSEOFPLAY10
