Crafts & Activities

Choose two or three relatively calm activities for a two-hour party. Have a few extra ideas ready just in case. Alternate crafts and other sit-down activities with active games to keep the pace of the party moving.

Reading is great between activities such as a game and cake time. It can be used to keep children occupied while a parent sets out the tableware and cake. Also, reading can be effective at the end of the party, when children are waiting for their parents to arrive. Some suggestions:

• Dinosaur Valley by Mitsuhiro Kurokawa (Chronicle Books, 1997)
• Dazzle the Dinosaur by Marcus Pfister (North South Books, 2000)
• Tyrannosaurus Was a Beast: Dinosaur Poems by Jack Prelutsky (Mulberry Books, 1999)
• Dinosaur Roar by Paul Stickland (Dutton, 1998)

Set up a craft activity so each guest can start working immediately as they arrive; it's a good way to corral the excitement in a positive way.

Ages: 2 and up

Preparation time: 20 minutes

Playing time: 20 minutes

Players: Any number

What you need:

• Chocolate pudding
• Clear plastic cups
• Strawberry or red-raspberry jam
• Crushed chocolate cookies
• Jelly beans and/or dinosaur-shaped candy
• Plastic spoons

Before the party:

1. Make chocolate pudding. If desired, half-fill clear plastic cups with pudding to set. Or make in large bowl and divide into servings at party.

2. Crumble chocolate cookies into pieces.

At the party:

3. Scoop mud (pudding) into clear plastic cups.

4. Let children top their mud with dirt (crushed cookies), lava (jam), dinosaurs (candy), and dinosaur eggs (jelly beans).

Ages: 2 and up

Preparation time: 30 minutes

Playing time: 10 minutes

Players: Any number

What you need:

• Clean, tall baby bottle or similar tall, thin jar
• 6 tablespoons baking soda
• 1 cup white vinegar
• Red and green food coloring
• Cookie sheet (optional)
• Play dough (see recipe below)

Before the party:

1. Make or purchase enough play dough so that each guest will have a small ball with which to help form the volcano.

2. Mix the white vinegar with a few drops of red food coloring.

At the party:

3. Explain to the children that as molten lava from the Earth's center spews out from a volcano onto the ground, it cools and becomes new land. Some people believe that the dinosaurs may have been killed off by tremendous volcanic eruptions that covered the Earth.

4. Place the bottle in the center of a table or on a cookie sheet (for easy cleanup). Give each child a ball of play dough and let each child help mold play dough around the bottle to form a mountain shape. Children can also poke holes to put on "rocks" or pinch dough to make trees.

5. When the bottle is hidden except for the top rim, and the volcano is decorated, spoon at least 1/3 cup baking soda into the mouth of the bottle.

6. To make the volcano "erupt," slowly pour vinegar into the bottle until it froths out. You can make it erupt several times by pouring the vinegar in again after each eruption subsides.

Ages: 4 and up

Preparation time: 20 minutes

Playing time: 15 minutes

Players: This recipe makes enough for up to 8 children to build one large volcano.

What you need:

• 1-1/2 cups salt
• 3 tablespoons cream of tartar
• 6 cups boiling water
• 9 tablespoons cooking oil
• 9 cups flour
• Food coloring as desired

Before the party:

1. Place salt, flour, and cream of tartar in bowl and stir to mix. Slowly add oil and half the water, and mix. If using the entire batch for the volcano, add green food coloring and the rest of the water. Otherwise, add water only.

2. Knead until dough is formed. For volcano, form dough into balls and store covered in plastic wrap. For other uses, divide dough into quarters and knead a few drops of food coloring into each hunk. Then store, covered in plastic.

At the party:

3. Continue with Step 4 of Volcano project, above. Or put out multicolored dough along with pictures of dinosaurs and fossils, and let children fashion their own creations.