Dinosaur Sticky Wall

For this months Play Patrol challenge, the boys were given the task of getting creative. I was really happy to see this because creative play is something we love! I really love how open ended creative play toys can be, and how they can be returned to time and time again for so many different activities. This morning Mr R and I had some fun making a dinosaur sticky wall using these Dinosaur drawing templates from Bigjigs. This is just one of many activities that I’m sure we will enjoy using these simple wooden dinosaur shapes.

Mr R really loved this activity and it’s creative while still being pretty mess free, with a quick and easy set up.

To set up your sticky wall you will need (along with your shape templates)

• Sticky back plastic
• Tissue paper

You will also need scissors and tape but hopefully they can easily be found around the home.

First we chose some colours for our tissue, and used our dinosaur templates to draw the shapes and then cut them out:

As you can see these wooden templates are nice and strong and sturdy, so they should withstand all sorts of activities. We chose these four colours since we had this tissue left over from a pass the parcel game earlier in the week! Better to use it up for an activity than throw it away! You can choose which ever colours you like though – maybe going for a real dinosaur camoflage colour scheme with a few different greens and browns, or go for a full range of rainbow colours!

The wooden templates were also fun for Mr R to have fun with while I prepared the rest of the materials.

 Depending on your child’s skill level, they can draw around all of the dinosaur shapes and cut them out too, or for younger toddlers that might be a job for the parent while the child can do all of the sticking that comes next.

Once your shapes are ready, you need to prepare your sticky wall area. I thought of doing this activity at the window so that the light could shine through all of the coloured tissue for a sun catcher, stained glass window type effect but then decided to set it up on a wall where we had a little more space.

Cut a large piece of sticky back plastic (also known as contact paper) then carefully stick this against the wall (Sticky side out).

It works well if you remove the backing from one top corner first – tape that corner down firmly (we used invisible scotch tape which is similar to cellotape. Any tape should be fine!). Once the first corner is firmly stuck, then repeat that step with the other top corner. Then remove the rest of the backing and tape the bottom two corners too. If your child is likely to try pulling it too roughly then you can tape all along the edges to make it extra secure. You can see here how our top edges are taped:

Mr R then got started sticking his tissue paper dinosaur shapes all over the sticky wall. I made our sticky area quite tall and thin, so he was able to reach up tall and stick, and to crouch down on the floor and stick too.

At first he stuck them on quickly but then realised that if he worked slowly and carefully then the dinosaurs would go on much more neatly. I didn’t tell him this, he made his own observation through trial and error which was nice to see.

While sticking, you can talk about the different types of dinosaur (t-rex, stegosaurus and so on), the different colours and sizes. Mr R found it very funny to stick some of them upside down or in a position where they look like they’re falling over! You can also stick some of the dinosaurs overlapping to explore how the colours look on top of each other.

I had been meaning to make a sticky wall for the kids for a while now, and it was so quick and easy to set up that we will definitely do this again. Mr R loved the activity! The dinosaur theme really appealed to him too (he’s the most dinosaur enthusiast child in the  house)

There was lots of concentration going on here. Sticking down all the dinosaurs very carefully is good fine motor work. He had a lot of pride in his finished work too.

For more kids activity ideas make sure you’re following our kids activities and ideas board on Pinterest and why not pin this idea for later too. It will be perfect for those rainy and cold days that are sure to be coming along now that Winter is on it’s way.

Follow Anna – In The Playroom’s board kids Ideas and activities on Pinterest.