Hands On
A Colorful Hypothesis
Help your child understand and apply the term "hypothesis," and investigate the science of color.
Dinosaur Hand Shadows
Help your child learn and create the shape of various dinosaurs and pterosaurs (and other creatures from the Mesozoic Era).
Eruption!
Help your child understand how a volcano forms, and what causes it to erupt, and make a model of a volcano that demonstrates a safe chemical reaction.
Even Bigger Than T. rex!
Help your child comprehend the size of some gigantic dinosaurs.
Pterosaur Plane
Help your child understand the science behind how pterosaurs, birds, bats, and paper airplanes glide through the air.
Smell This!
Help your child investigate his sense of smell and explore how it is connected to the sense of taste.
Investigating Nature
Bird Beak Buffet
In this activity, children will experiment with different utensils as they explore each tool's capacity to pick up assorted food objects.
Camouflage Cloak
Help your child understand how animals use camouflage to hide from animals that want to eat them (predators) by painting and decorating a simple cloak that helps them hide in a natural setting.
Collect a Critter
Help your child observe and appreciate insects and other small (safe) wild animals in his area and think about the environments these creatures need to survive.
Drawing Birds
Help your child learn the names of different parts of one bird they observed.
Edible Bird Feeder
Make a homemade bird feeder to hang outside your window or in a tree by your home.
Footprints and Trackways
Help your child learn about the different kinds of footprints that common modern animals leave behind by making a "stamp" of a Tyrannosaurus footprint and creating a T. rex trackway.
Gardening for Birds
Attract migrating birds to your home with a container garden.
Meeting Modern Dinosaurs — Birds!
Learn how to encourage your child to observe, document, and identify different types of birds that live in his area.
Nature Treasure Hunt
Encourage your child to observe plants and animals in your area, and create a simple riddle about one of her nature discoveries.
Start a Nature Collection
Help your child observe and appreciate the natural world in her community and help your child categorize, and share her findings with others.
Arts, Crafts, & Cooking
All Abooooard! It's a Dino Breakfast
Help your child learn how to prepare a special dinosaur-theme breakfast. Create a menu for this homemade meal.
Dinosaurs of a Feather
Help your child observe and compare different bird feathers, discuss different ways that feathers help birds (and dinosaurs) survive, and create a 3-D picture of what a feathered Velociraptor might have looked like.
Have a Brachiosaurus Picnic
Help your child prepare a vegetarian (herbivore) picnic for the class and learn what foods fit into an herbivore's diet (fruits and vegetables). Also, learn how to remind your child about the importance of handwashing before eating and discuss why all animals need to eliminate waste from their bodies (a.k.a. pooping).
Homemade Fossils
Help your child learn what fossils are, and how they are formed.
Hungry Herbivores
Help your child learn what an herbivore is, then create and compare two collages: one featuring pictures of modern day animals that eat only plants, and another featuring your child's favorite fruits and vegetables.
Make a Dragonfly
Help your child learn some basic insect anatomy by creating a model of a dragonfly and help your child learn that some animals they can see in the world today also lived at the time of the dinosaurs.
Make a Maiasaura Nest and Eggs
Help your child learn that different dinosaur species had different sized eggs.
The Dino "Talk Show"
Help your child research and present basic information about one of their favorite dinosaur species.
Make a Stegosaurus Puppet
Help your child understand some possible purposes of dinosaur spikes and tails (for protection, to cool off, to identify other members of their species). To create a paper bag puppet of a Stegosaurus.
Games
Dinosaurs A to Z
Help your child practice the letters of the alphabet while learning about diversity of dinosaurs that once lived on Earth.
Playing Dino Ball YOUR Way
Help your child creatively solve problems and get exercise by inventing the rules for an imaginary game featured in Dinosaur Train, then playing it.
