Celebrate your favorite dinosaur lover with a dinosaur dig, one of the best dinosaur party games for dinosaur lovers of all ages!
I’m a boy mom so that means our house is full of dinosaurs. Dinosaur toys, Jurassic World bedding, shirts with dinosaurs of all shapes and sizes.
We did this dinosaur dig for one of the dinosaur party games (right after making these fun foam dinosaurs) at my son’s Disney themed birthday party, and the kids all loved it so I figured I’d share the idea here!
The basic idea of the dinosaur dig is that you’ll fill a large bucket with rice and small plastic dinosaurs, dinosaur eggs filled with candy, silly putty eggs, etc.
Then cover the “prizes” with the rice and for the game have the kids dig for dinosaurs. Or if you want to do this outdoors like we did for my son’s birthday party, you could definitely use sand as well. Sand just doesn’t clean up well inside.
You can either see who can find the most items in a certain amount of time (for older kids), see who can find certain items the quickest (again for older kids) or just let the kids dig around in the rice to find a prize or prizes to take home.
This is one of the easiest party games you’ll ever plan and put together. And bonus, if you don’t want to do something else, the dinosaurs the kids find during the dig can be their party favors! I’m all about killing two birds, okay pterodactyls, with one stone.
Supplies:
- Under the bed storage bin
- Rice – I used three 10 lb bags of white long grain rice to fill my storage bin
- Small plastic dinosaurs like these ones
- Other dinosaur toys or prizes
- Eggs filled with candy/prizes (dinosaur eggs)
Instructions:
I feel kind of silly even giving you these instructions because it’s so simple.
Fill the storage bin with rice then hide the dinosaurs and prizes inside the rice. You could also use uncooked pasta or sand, but I found that the rice is easier to buy in bulk and much cleaner than the sand.
Just make sure you have a vacuum on hand for after the dig is over. I guarantee you’ll need it.
See who can find the most items in a certain amount of time or see who can find certain items (e.g., T-rex, brontosaurus) the quickest.
You could even turn it into a relay and have one team find all of one type of dinosaurs and another team find all of another type.
For younger kids: Let them dig around in the rice to find a prize or prizes to take home. Or just let them dig around and play in the rice for as long as they’ll stay entertained.
More Dinosaur Party Ideas
Rebecca says
What a fun activity for kids, your son looks like he’s having a blast!
BritniV says
Thanks Rebecca!
Chelsea @ Life With My Littles says
Cute! Is the other little toy a tiny Chris Pratt? haha. I am going to see the movie on Thursday with my husband, and I literally can’t wait! This is a great way to share my excitement with my son!
BritniV says
It is Chelsea, funny right?
Natalee says
Any ideas on how to make the dinosaur dig fair with a group of small kids? I’m doing a sandbox excavation activity (digging for tiny dino skeleton toys) followed by a dinosaur egg hunt (same as Easter egg hunt) for my son’s 3rd birthday. His friends are between 2 and 5 years old. I’m wondering if I should ask kids (i.e. parents) to hunt for a certain number of fossils? Or hunt as long as they like, and feel free to take 2 home? For the egg hunt, I thought I’d make it so each kid gets one of each color egg, OR ask them to hunt for 10 eggs. The eggs have small toy dinos, stickers, snacks, stamps, etc. inside. I figure they can trade with each other after if they don’t like what they get!
Suggestions would be more than welcome! These kids are definitely at an age where (1) fairness is super important, and (2) some of them are going to find eggs/ fossils a LOT faster than others. THANKS!
BritniV says
It depends on how big your sandbox is. I could see little kids that age just wanting to dig in the sand for hours and not really understand that they can’t take the fossils home. Or they dig and find the fossils then leave them on top of the sand, so it’s not as fun for other kids. I would probably recommend doing a certain number of fossils, just like you’re doing with the eggs. But make sure to bury extra just in case someone does break the rules (there’s always going to be someone). You may want to just have a helper supervising that area as well in case parents aren’t doing activities with some of the older kids so they know the rules.
Sounds fun!