House of Burke: Dinosaur Sensory Swamp Snack

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It's our favorite time of month again: Book Club Play Date time! Dinosaurs have always been a huge hit over here. Since K was a baby we have been surrounded by dinosaurs. He even went through a phase where he had to choose a new dinosaur to join him for dinner every night. Yup. SO, combining dinosaurs with food is NOT a new thing for us at all. This month we read Dinosaurumpus! and made a simple and interactive Dinosaur Sensory Swamp Snack!

This snack was simple to make, and is perfect for feeding a crowd of hungry book club play date tots! Kingston has never really eaten Jello before, so I thought it would be fun and different for him. To create the gelatin swamp, I used Lime Jell-O. I made it according to package instructions, but took it out of the refrigerator right before it reached the "setting" point. (About an hour using the quick set method). This made it just runny enough that it was the perfect swamp.

While it was setting, I dyed some coconut flakes with green and yellow food coloring. I had to get some fine motor work in there, so Kingston helped add some plastic mini dinosaurs and sprinkled coconut flakes all over the swamp. We pretended they were leaves and foliage for the dinosaurs to eat. We added a pretend tree for extra ambiance and admired our work.

For a larger book club playdate, you could add enough dinosaurs so that every little one got their own piece with their own dino to take home! Kingston was super excited to have his very own dinosaur on top of his snack. We recited some lines from the story before he tasted it and he made his dino dance around the swamp.

We sang, "Shake, shake, shudder.... near the sludgy old swamp. The dinosaurs are coming. Get ready to romp." K made his dinosaur dance around (and he may have munched on the swamp a little bit!) When we were done playing with our food, K was ready to try it.