Thinking Thursdays: Recycled dino playscene

Junior J recently went crazy over dinosaurs.  He sprouts names like "Parasaurolophus", pours over dinosaur books, and asks to watch videos featuring Ankylosaurus.  Since he picked up a dino friend or two from the natural history museums in Brussels and London, we decided to make a home for them.  So we started off with some Ikea packaging (a box used to hold our ceiling light).  The boy painted a bunch of scrunched up newspaper blue, to represent the river, which we stuck down:

He painted the base of the box green (to represent grass for his dinos to eat).  Then he painted the sides of the box light blue (I helped him a little with this part since he got somewhat distracted after painting 2 sides of the box!), and dabbed on white paint to represent clouds:

I made his dino friends a cave to hide in (he claims T-Rex has to hide in there as all the dinos will chase him).  This we made using some kraft paper that was originally used to wrap glass bowls...

I stuck scrunched up strips in the middle to the triangle, then folded over all three corners to meet as the base.

... which he insisted on painting black (all the colours for this project were chosen by him):

Then the herbivores needed an alternative meal aside from boring old grass so we made a tree too, using a toilet paper roll, and scrunched up newpaper:

We cut the top and bottom to represent the roots and branches, and stuck on the newpaper ball on top!

And of course, we provided a nest (again, recycled kraft paper) for eggs:

This was an Easter egg from a friend.  He claims its a Maiasaurus egg!

So now, all his dino pals are happily settled into their new place.  And our pockets are rather happy too, since this didn't cost us anything (except for the paint of course!)!

PS: We made a felt river playscene last time for his animals.  Click here for the how-tos and details!