Dinosaur dig tuff tray
I love coming up with new activity ideas using dinosaurs, which are my son's favourite toys. The latest tuff tray I tried was a dinosaur dig tray.
What you need to make your Tuff Tray
- Tuff tray
- Toy Dinosaurs – smaller ones are better here.
- Something to cover the dinosaurs with. I personally used old cereal, which I had blended down together after using it for another activity. You could also use things like sand, rice or real mud.
- Brushes.
How to set up the activity
This was super simple to set up. I spread out the dinosaurs on the tray, then covered them with our cereal mixture, making sure all the dinosaurs were hidden. I then added some brushes that the children could use to gently excavate the dinosaurs with and it was ready to go.
My 5 and 6-year-old children really loved this activity and had a great time trying to find the dinosaurs and guess which ones they had as they brushed away at them.
Ways to adapt the activity
I wanted to make this a bit more challenging for my son, so I added a ‘Dinosaur dig findings sheet’ to the end of the activity. I wrote down things that had to be recorded, including how many dinosaurs they had found, how many different types of species they had found and finally, I really tested him but asking if he could name all of the species of dinosaurs.
This add-on turned the activity from a fun edible tuff tray activity that my children could get really hands-on with, to an activity where they needed to count, write and practice their spellings.
For more fun activities for kids click here
Some of my other favourite tuff tray activities are:
1. Edible construction tray, which you can find here
2. Mess-free painting, which you can find here
3. Dinosaur ice rescue, which you can find here