The Land of the Dinosaurs

As my son has got older I have changed the way I set up our small world activities. When he was younger I would build the small world for him and encourage him to play with my set up. Now I put the different resources out and together we will build the small world. Changing this has had huge benefits on the way he plays, his independence, his imagination and his language skills.

Set Up

For the activity I used the grey playdough, the eggy head, the rosemary, the wood slices, the wooden flower buttons, the green felt balls, the tissue paper and the wooden building blocks from our March activity box. I then just added the dinosaurs from my son’s toy bag.

For me it is still important to present the resources in a visually appealing way to get my son’s attention and I believe this models the care we should have over his toys.

I rolled some of the grey playdough into balls to represent rocks.

This was such a hit with my son. He loved it and he quickly set up his dinosaur land how he wanted. I hadn’t included the big t-rex on the wooden board and my son went to get him.

It was really lovely watching his imagination go wild as he made up his own story and t-rex became a vegetarian, eating the rosemary and wooden flower buttons.

A bonus of this activity that my son discovered was the footprints that were left in the playdough.

Really lovely activity that stayed out for most of the day.