Your dinosaur birthday invitation

The key here is to unlock your and your child's creativity and produce some really vibrant birthday invitations. You can download dinosaur images from the internet, cut them out and stick them on the birthday invitation. Why not make some foam dinosaurs out of craft sponge to accompany the birthday invitation? Or you could deliver the birthday invitation with some chocolate eggs. Another great idea is to deliver the invitation in person in a balloon so that when the balloon gets popped the message inside is a wonderful surprise! You'll need balloons with a wide neck so that you can fit the birthday invitation inside the balloon. Roll up the birthday invitation and ease it through the gap, then blow up the balloon and tie the neck. Then you are ready to deliver the birthday invitation.

Dress the house and the garden

Put lots of dinosaur pictures around the house and garden. You could make a nest of eggs out of balloons with a weight inside to ensure they do not blow away, or you could buy plastic eggs. Use your imagination when it comes to dressing up, but perhaps a word of caution if you decide to dress as a dinosaur. A six foot human in dinosaur fancy dress roaring out of the front door can be a little intimidating for some children and may result early tears, so this is perhaps best avoided.

Your birthday party activities

Pin the tail on the diplodocus is a variation on pin the tail on the donkey. You can draw your diplodocus or get an image off the internet by searching Google for images.

Hunt for the dinosaur eggs is a variation on the treasure hunt game. Hide lots of chocolate dinosaur eggs around the garden and then have the children find them. You could also hide plastic dinosaurs to add variation. You can number the dinosaurs so that each is exchanged for a prize. You can give clues if you wish. Set the children to work in pairs,or as you wish.

Next you can have a dinosaur relay race, followed by paint a dinosaur. Use all the old favourites but adapt them to the theme.

Make a dinosaur cake, or ask your local cake shop to make one for you. You can get aluminum cake pans in a wide range of shapes and you should be able to find a dinosaur shaped pan or egg shaped pan by doing an internet search. Frost your dinosaur or egg cake with bright colours. Use your imagination to make the dinosaur interesting. For example, for a triceratops, you could make the bony back and tail plates out of orange slices.