Sensory Dinosaur Small World Play
Hello! I am Emma from Adventures of Adam. You won’t believe how thrilled I am to be appearing on Rainy Day Mum. I am Mum to 2 year old Adam. At Adventures of Adam we blog about “play activities that won’t cost the earth but will mean the world to your little one.” Today we are sharing with you our recent dinosaur adventure.
Charles Fuge is one of my favourite children’s authors. I adore the ‘Little Wombat’ series so when we discovered he was releasing a new book this year, on Adam’s birthday, I knew we had to buy it immediately. The timing of ‘Three Little Dinosaurs Egg Rescue’ was perfect as it coincided with Adam showing a keen interest in dinosaurs.
‘Three Little Dinosaurs Egg Rescue’ is about a precious egg that the three dinosaur friends are asked to care for whilst Mrs Rex takes a shower. “Don’t let any naughty mammals near it!” she warns. However, the egg is snatched from the nest by a mischievous mammal. The book documents the three dinosaurs attempting to rescue the egg. We have read the book several times and Adam loves to shout out “mammal” when he sees the mammal taking the egg.
Our own dinosaur adventure started with a special delivery.
Why not check out some of our Book Themed Sensory Bins to encourage your toddler and preschooler with reading as well!
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Materials for the special delivery:
There was a knock on the front door. Adam had received a basket with a note attached saying “please take care of me.” Inside the basket was a dinosaur egg. Surprisingly Adam shouted out “mammal” when he saw the egg. He had immediately made the connection between our egg and Mrs Rex’s egg.
For the next week Adam took care of his egg. Each day he would look inside the basket and realise the egg had gone. Adam would shout “mammal!” before looking to see where mammal had taken the egg. The egg was discovered in a variety of places around the house and garden.
On the last day Adam went to look inside the basket and discovered the egg had hatched! In its place was Triceratops. This time Adam didn’t shout “mammal” but said “didodoor” instead. We set about making a home for Triceratops.
Materials for the dinosaur sensory bin:
- Triceratops (or other dinosaur) finger puppet
- Homemade chocolate playdough
- Small plastic dinosaurs and plastic trees
- Hanging basket liner and scissors
- Cardboard box
- A variety of peas and lentils – we used red split lentils, yellow split peas, dried peas and chick peas
To create a cave for Triceratops we used the liner of a hanging basket and cut out a semi circle. A cardboard box was placed underneath to create a mountain for the cave to sit on. We made chocolate playdough for the mud and used a variety of lentils and chickpeas for the stones. I added a variety of small plastic dinosaurs and trees to create our dinosaur sensory bin.
As well as exploring the different textures of the ‘stones’ Adam made dinosaur footprints in the chocolate playdough, covered the dinosaurs up in the stones and placed the dinosaurs in the cave. Adam had a great time in the dinosaur sensory bin and I am sure we will have many more adventures with his new friend Triceratops.
Check out our other dinosaur and book themed play at Adventures of Adam:
Emma Edwards
During a difficult pregnancy suffering from Hyperemesis Gravidarum (HG) Emma vowed to make every day an adventure once she had recovered. Adventures of Adam is the outcome of completing a 100 day play challenge with Adam as part of that promise. Emma has a section dedicated to HG friendly play activities so that Mums can still be part of their children’s play whilst they are ill.