The Good Dinosaur Movie Night

 For our Summer Reading Program, we typically have 2 movie nights at the library. These are held after hours and only attendees are allowed in the building. We have snacks, crafts, activities and project the movie on one of the big walls for everyone to see. Movie nights at the library are one of my favorite programs we have.

In this post, I'm sharing our DINO DIG activity, DINO BONES craft, PASSIVE PROGRAM and little SNACK idea.

Dino Dig
Inspiration for this craft came from a recipe for "Dinosaur Eggs" from Super Simple Fossil Projects by Jessie Alkire. In this book, there are instructions on how to make Dinosaur Eggs with small plastic
toy dinos inside them. Initially, we discussed having the kids create and mold their own dinosaur egg to take home and dry. They could then crack open their egg later to reveal their dinosaur. The drying process would take a few days though, so we adapted the craft to something similar.

Our dino dig used a similar dirt recipe as the book and we encased the dinosaurs inside and let the kids dig for their dino!

Once they dug out their dinosaur, we had a cleaning station to wipe all the dirt and mess off so they could truly see and identify their dino.

Preparation Process
Recipe came from Projects for Preschoolers. The one thing I would have done differently is letting the mixture dry longer. I prepared this 3 days ahead of time to dry but it could have used more. If you're not using a large container like I did, 3 days would probably be fine.

We filled up 2 of these plastic storage bins with our dirt mixture and dinosaurs and left them outside to dry during the day and brought them inside the building during the night.

 
We had right around 40 of these guys to hide.

Dinosaurs were bought from the local dollar store and tried to get a wide variety of types.

Before burying, I snapped this picture  so I could make an identification chart with all the different types they might find.

Thankfully I was able to find a chart already made with exactly what I needed.

As kids dug up and identified their dinosaur, they could write their name under "Paleontologist" and the type dinosaur they found under "Type of Dinosaur"

And that was it.



Dinosaur Bone Art

This was another activity from the Super Simple Fossil Projects book by Jessie Alkire.

This was alot less mess than the Dino Dig but still a good bit of set-up.

For this activity, kids are coloring in a dinosaur with water color paint. Their bones have been laid out with masking tape and when the paint dries, the masking tape can be pulled up to reveal their skeleton!


Snacks

We always have popcorn at Movie Night, but we also prepared a little sweet snack to go along with this event!  ....   Pinterest always has a plethora of snack mix ideas!




Passive Program
To foster a little excitement for our Movie Night, we had these footprints printed out and set out on a table with crayons.

Kids would write something they were proud of and we'd stick it to the front of the desk.

We had some darling responses and I wish I had a picture of them! My two favorites were someone was proud of being a  cleft palate kid and another was proud of their mom sticking to her diet! 😃

Click Here for Printable Arlo Footprints

Click Here for Table Top Signs and Dinosaur Identification Chart