Dinosaur Feet

I’m not really sure where I initially saw this idea, so if it was your idea please let me know! And please visit We Play Tuesday at Childhood 101 for more play ideas!

If you’ve been reading this blog for any amount of time, you probably already know that Cutie Pie is WAY in to dinosaurs, so I’ve been trying to do more things with dinosaurs to help him learn. We do things like sort his toy dinosaurs by color, size, species. We count them, put them in lines from shortest to longest. We use them when we play with playdough. We use them as a basis for crafts, to explain ideas. You name it, we try to incorporate dinosaurs as they are a great learning tool for Cutie Pie!

A few weeks ago we had a couple of empty cereal boxes and a couple of smaller boxes from fruit snacks that hadn’t yet made it out to the recycling bin. I also happened to have some very large green and gray sheets of construction paper that were hanging about in Hubby’s classroom for years without being used. (They were actually pretty faded, but paper is paper when it comes to crafts with boys!) This is how I made them:

1. Wrap the boxes with the paper (this is what made my boys curious)
2. Cut holes in the sides and put some packing tape on the opposite side (that would be the surface to hit the floor and I thought this would make them last longer. Next time, though, I’d strengthen the holes for the feet as well, as those ripped on us pretty quickly.) 
3. Packed crumpled up newspaper in the boxes leaving room for the kiddo’s feet (to help the boxes stay on their feet better without turning in all directions and making it very hard to walk)
4. Decorate the dinosaur feet. (I was hoping for some paint use, or at least crayons to make this craft more exciting…they just wanted toes added. So out came the foam paper and triangles were cut and pasted and taped on.)

We had so much fun walking like dinosaurs while we did a lot of pretend play! Cutie Pie used the cereal box-size dino feet and Sweet Pea the fruit snack size. This actually ended up being a good balancing and coordination tool as the feet forced them to walk funny! It also turned into yet another opportunity to practice sharing between brothers as Sweet Pea wanted to wear Cutie Pie’s dino feet, but Cutie Pie’s couldn’t fit into Sweet Pea’s! Maybe I’ll try this idea again when we talk about another big animal….

Note: There is a very similar set of dinosaur feet at House of Baby Piranha so please go check this out, too! They’re also sporting a neat dinosaur hat!