Jurassic World – at home
Since the release of the Jurassic World movie back in June, I have been under constant fire from my boys asking for Jurassic World toys. I just can’t justify paying $200 for Jurassic World Lego when they already have so many Lego and dinosaurs at home. So, I suggested that we improvise and it went down surprisingly well. The only difference is that my kids play with this scene and it didn’t cost me a cent.
Here is what I did:
- I rearranged some furniture to make a blank space in the corner of our lounge room. I wanted the play space to be somewhere central as the kids are more likely to play in it. It was a rainy and miserable day so it was perfect for an inside activity.
- Using whatever I could find around the house that was brown and green, I started assembling the landscape of our Jurassic World. I used a cane laundry hamper, a cane woven box, a beanbag that I covered with a green sheet, a small chair, a green bath towel, and a chair that I threw some hessian over. I also hung up a brown sheet using tacks into the window pane.
- I walked around our yard and pulled down some vines and tacked them to the top of the window pane also. We have so many palm cuttings in our yard so I added some of those too. I think it is really starting to come together and the kids couldn’t wait to get started.
- I left it as a plain landscape overnight and woke to find my 8 year old filling it with dinosaur activity. We have ‘Predator Hill’, a Velociraptor feeding station – just like in the movie, a nesting ground up high on a cliff, a Triceratops migration and lots more.
We didn’t have a replica Mosasaurus so I used an old crocodile toy and set him in some blue jelly. The same thing can be done with water and a drop of blue food colouring.
I used play dough balls that were dried out for the dinosaur eggs but you can use marbles or even real egg shells that have been cleaned.
The possibilities are endless. My son plans to build a feeding platform over the top of the Mosasaurus tank as well as placing Lego jeeps around the landscape. I didn’t want to fill it too much for the photos so you can get idea but now it is time for me to step back and let their imaginations run wild.
These are all things I had at home and didn’t go and buy anything. This type of play is just so versatile and you can use whatever you have at home without spending a fortune. After a few days when the kids get bored of it, pack it away for another rainy day.