Make a Dinosaur Sensory Play Tray

Make a dinosaur sensory tray to delight the paleontologists of tomorrow! If you’re looking for new ways to play with favourite dinosaur toys, or activities for dino-mad kids, this inspiring sensory play tray is packed with ideas for how to bring excitement into your next day at home with the children. Even better, you’ll find most of the things you need in your kitchen cupboards and playroom! 

Dinosaur Sensory Play Essentials (Bonus: You’ve Already Got Most Of It!)

You don’t need to go on a huge shopping spree to create sensory trays – there’s so much you can use in your kitchen, garden and toy shelf. The only essentials needed to make a dinosaur themed play tray are simple: some toy dinosaurs (we used a mixture of types and sizes, including these wooden dinosaurs and a tray or collection of containers.

What Kind of Tray is Best for Sensory Play?

The content of the tray is far more important than the tray itself. A sensory play tray [LINK: https://inspiremyplay.com/collections/the-original-playtray/products/playtray] works really well, but if you haven’t got one then you can also try:
Chip and dip tray (available from supermarkets during the summer, or look in charity shops)
Snack tray
Divided plate 

A collection of small bowls (e.g. toddler-sized bowls) or sandwich/food storage boxes
Clean, dry food packaging e.g. yoghurt pots, dip pots, quiche trays, ice cream tubs

Muffin tin

If you choose to use a collection of small pots, you may want to group them together in a deep-sided tray or large box.

You will need:

A play tray, divided tray or collection of small pots (see below for ideas of what to use if you don’t have a play tray)
Dinosaur figures

A selection of spoons, tongs, brushes, mini tools, paintbrushes, scoops and sticks

A magnifying glass (optional)

A selection of ‘fillings’ (see below)

How To Build A Dinosaur Play Tray

Once you’ve chosen what kind of container or tray to use and found the all-important dinosaur toys, it’s time to work on the fillings. You don’t have to use everything suggested – just including a few different textures and colours for your child and their dinosaurs to explore will create a fun activity to keep them busy and stimulated for ages! 

Some of these need a little extra preparation – you can find the instructions for those below. But for lots of them, you just pour, add utensils and dino toys, then wait to see some happy kids! 

If you use wooden figures and utensils in this activity, wipe them with a damp cloth when you have finished. They might not like being submerged in jelly for too long! 

Make sure that your child understands that none of these items are to be eaten, and that dried pasta, beans, peas and seeds can be a choking hazard. Your child should not be left unattended with this activity. 

Dinosaur Sensory Play Fillers

• Dinosaur Eggs – see instructions below

• Taste-Safe Swamp Slime – see instructions below

• Jelly Dino Dig – see instructions below

• Dried pasta: Use colourful pasta, dinosaur-shaped pasta, ordinary pasta shapes or broken spaghetti

• Uncooked rice

• Uncooked couscous

• Dried lentils

• Dried beans e.g. kidney beans, black beans (black turtle beans), borlotti beans, black eyed beans, canellini beans, pinto beans, chickpeas

• Dried peas

• Edible seeds e.g. sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, chia seeds, flax seeds

• Small, clean stones 

• Clean seashells

• Playsand

• Fresh herbs like rosemary or mint to create a jungle look and add amazing scents

• Play bark

How To Make Taste Safe, All-Natural Swamp Slime

Something’s lurking in the slimy swamp… Can your child work out which prehistoric creatures are underneath that murky goo?! 

There’s nothing nasty in this slime – no borax, no activator and no chemicals. It’s easy to make and uses simple ingredients you’ll find in your kitchen or supermarket shelf. Be warned, you do need to start this recipe a few hours before you need it, or ideally the night before. This one might get a bit messy so make sure you play with it away from precious carpets, sofas and other items – but it’s not as bad to clean up as other slimes and really is a sensory explosion! 

This chia seed slime is taste-safe, but it is not meant to be eaten.

Chia Slime Ingredients

2 tablespoons dried chia seeds

250ml water

A few drops of food colouring (optional, any colour you like)

Cornflour (about 5 tablespoons)

Mixing bowl

Spoon

Chia Slime Instructions

1. Put two tablespoons of chia seeds into a bowl, add 250ml water and stir. 

2. Cover the bowl and pop it in the fridge for a few hours, or overnight. It will thicken into a slimy gel.

3. Add a few drops of food colouring and stir.

4. Add cornflour, one tablespoon at a time, and stir. Keep adding spoons of cornflour until the slime is the thickness you like. 

How To Make Dinosaur Fossils

Fossils are a special part of any dinosaur play or exploration, and making your own to add to a sensory tray couldn’t be simpler. Try this on your own so children are surprised by what they uncover, or double the recipe if your little helpers want to get involved in fossil-making, too! 

Salt Dough Ingredients

75g table salt

150g flour

75ml water

Mixing bowl
Spoon
Rolling pin
Biscuit or fondant cutters – dinosaurs, bones and dinosaur skeletons work especially well, but aren’t essential

Lined baking sheet

Salt Dough Fossils Instructions

1. Add the flour, salt and water to a bowl and stir until it combines into a dough.

2. Knead the mixture for a few minutes until it becomes smooth.

3. Roll it out to 0.5 cm - 1 cm thickness and use cutters to create bones, dinosaurs and skeletons, or mould the dough into small bone shapes. 

4. Place the dough creations onto a lined baking sheet and bake at 50℃, or on your oven’s lowest setting, for about three hours.   

5. Leave to cool.

6. Place into a pot or section of the play tray and cover with something dry, like play sand, couscous or lentils. Provide scoops and brushes so your young archaeologist can discover what’s hidden inside!

Jelly Dino Dig

This wibbly-wobbly excavation activity is sure to get paleontologists-in-training giggling! 

Jelly Dino Dig Ingredients

Jelly cubes or powder

Jug

Spoon

Hot water

Fridge

Small, clean plastic dinosaurs

Jelly Dino Dig Instructions

1. Follow the instructions on the jelly packaging to make it into a liquid and leave it to cool for a few minutes

2. Place the dinosaurs into a pot or section of the play tray.

3. Pour the liquid jelly over the dinosaurs and leave it to set. Provide scoops and spoons so your dino experts can dig in!

Dino Egg

Add a mysterious egg shell to your play scene, then ask young dino fans what they think might have hatched out? Could it be a terrific T.rex, an enormous Brachiosaurus or a teeny Velociraptor? 

Dino Egg Ingredients

2-3 eggs

Sharp knife

Bowl

Kitchen paper

Dino Egg Instruction

1. Carefully cut the top off an egg by tapping a sharp knife firmly into the shell. Pour the egg out of the small hole. Repeat with the remaining eggs. 

2. Gently wash the eggs, inside and out, and use kitchen paper to dry them.

You can use the egg whites and yolks however you like – dinosaur cupcakes, perhaps?!