How to Make your Own Dinosaur Egg Dig Tutorial: Birthday Party Idea

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My son had a Fossil / Dinosaur Birthday Party and I made these DIY dinosaur dig kits to send home with the kids as party favors! They were incredibly easy to make and I want to show you how to make your own dinosaur egg dig tutorial.

When I was researching how to make these dinosaur dig kits I stumbled upon several different “recipes” to create these DIY Dinosaur Eggs digs and so I decided to make two different recipes to see which one was best for making a large amount of these!

how to dinosaur dig tutorial photos

I will include both recipes you can use to make your own dinosaur dig kit (plus pros and cons!) below but my consensus was that they both look and feel about the same in the end.

Recipe 2 was a TON stickier and harder to work with when creating them but uses less ingredients! If you want to make your own dinosaur dig kits I highly recommend using Recipe 1!

dinosaur sensory activity book

DIY DINO DIG RECIPE  1:

1 cup used coffee grinds
1 cup flour
1/2 cup salt
1/4 cup sand (we used yellowed art sand)
3/4 cup water

Mix all of the dry ingredients together and then add 1/4 cup water at a time.

DIY DINO DIG RECIPE 2:

1 cup flour
1/2 cup cold coffee
1 cup used coffee grinds
1/2 cup salt 

Mix everything together!

toy dinosaur in diy dino egg dig

Once you’ve mixed your recipe together flatten a chunk of dough out in your hand and just place your dinosaur or other treasure inside for the kids to later dig out and find! (We bought a big bag of small dinosaurs for under $10 on Amazon that were the perfect size.) T

hen roll the rest of the dough right over your toy to form an egg or rock.

homemade dinosaur eggs

Here are both of mine – one “egg” in each different recipe so that you can see what they look like. Now there are 2 different ways you can harden your rock.

You can either bake them in the oven at 150* for about 20-30 minutes or you can leave them on a baking tray to air dry for about 2-3 weeks.

pile of homemade dinosaur eggs dig kit

pile of homemade dinosaur eggs dig kit

If the eggs are soft inside (about 1 week later) the kids should be able to just break them open with their hands. A great idea for younger kids!

If the eggs are hard you can use a hammer (even a toy wooden hammer!) or other blunt object to crack them open.

broken homemade dinosaur egg dig kit

We opened this one after air drying for 5 days and it was still soft inside but this is what it will look like when the kids break open their dinosaur eggs!

toy dinosaur in homemade dig kit

My boys dug their out and immediately started playing with their toy dinosaurs! It was a HUGE HIT!

boy digging a dinosaur egg dig kit

Every child will just LOVE this dinosaur dig and it was incredibly simple to make!! Not to mention that other than the toy dinos we had everything we needed at home!!

Feel free to PIN this for later and share with your friends!!

Better yet bookmark the page and come back later to make for your own kids or students!!

JOIN THESE Facebook Pages & Groups for even MORE SENSORY Ideas for Kids!:

Sensory Ideas for Kids Facebook PAGE

Sensory Ideas for Kids Facebook GROUP

Sensory Ideas for Babies Facebook GROUP

Here are a few other fun dinosaur party & favor ideas!:

Free Printable Dinosaur Play Dough Mat - Numbers 1-10 
Volcano Cake TutorialDinosaur Party Nest Egg Tutorial
dinosaur birthday party

Share with your friends!

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42 Comments

  1. My children are both studying dinosaurs in school. Cant wait to pass along this idea or try it at home!

  2. Love Notes Restyle Studio says:

    great idea! will be doing this one – thanks for sharing. Found you via I’m not a trophy wife favourite Friday linky party.

  3. Love the dinosaur eggs you linked up at Favorite Friday at I’m Not a Trophy Wife!
    I just pinned and put on my FB page/notatrophywife

    Thanks for posting! Love!

  4. How many eggs does this recipe make?

  5. Lovvvve this recipe…. Mine only did 4 eggs and my Dino’s are pretty small but I’ll be doing another batch! They are perfect!

  6. Haven’t tried this yet but wanted to say THANK YOU for a couple of comparisons in this post. There are a few variations on dino eggs out there and none of the blogs I’ve read so far actually tell you information about the outcome and consistency. This post was helpful as I’m making these for my 2 year old’s birthday party. I know the little ones won’t be able to handle cracking something so hard open…your post has really helped me!!

    1. You’re welcome! I know it’s frustrating to do one of those fabulous “pinterest” posts and have it turn out awful! 🙂 We’re making these again this year for my other son’s birthday!

  7. Hi there! Love this idea and plan on doing it for my son’s birthday. If I harden them in the oven are they still soft inside?

      1. Cathy Paulino says:

        Hello!
        Having a Prehistoric story time at the Library I work at on Thursday. I won’t have time to air dry so 150 degrees for 30 minutes won’t melt the dinosaurs? Or is 20 minutes good enough?

        1. 150* should be OK! I have not had issues with any dinos melting at that temperature! It should dry it enough for the kids to enjoy the dig or take it home and continue drying! I’d love to know how it goes!

  8. About how many eggs can you get from a recipe?

  9. Mine turned out more like mud (or something else the dinos left behind) and didn’t keepisode the form. What did I do wrong? Too much water?

  10. Hi there! love this! tell me is your temperature reading 150 F or 150 C? sorry I am from South AFrica and we use Celsius. Huge thanks for this xxxxx

  11. Can you reuse the broken “eggs” to make new ones?
    Thanks!

  12. Very cute idea! I wanted to let you know that I am featuring this on a dinosaur party roundup on my site with a link and photo if you don’t mind.

  13. I’ve got prehistoric muck baking in the oven RIGHt NOW!! Can’t wait to mail them off to my little paleontologist grandkids!!

  14. I can’t wait to make these! What a fabulous idea. Should the used coffee grounds be dried out? Thanks

  15. Gailen Hadley says:

    My son and I made these for my grandson 2nd birthday, they were very sticky and looked more like poop. We are going to let them dry a little and then try to reshape them.

  16. These came out awesome! Thanks for sharing.

  17. Do you think instant coffee would suffice in exchange for the coffee grounds in the recipe? My coffee maker is broken at the moment. :'( But I’d really love to try these with my little one.

    1. OH man you know, I don’t think instant coffee would work because it would probably dissolve down! But if you have regular coffee grounds on hands you could probably just pour them in a filter over a cup to dilute it down and then dry them out!

  18. Miz Helen says:

    What a great idea and a fun project! Hope you are having a great week and thanks so much for sharing your awesome post with Full Plate Thursday!
    Miz Helen

  19. Christee Bielamowicz says:

    These were super cute. I cut the amount of liquid cold coffe in recipe 2 in half and worked perfectly and way less sticky!

  20. What purpose does the coffee grounds serve? I would like to make these with some young Cub Scouts, but I am not a coffee drinker. Is the coffee for more than color and consistency?

    1. JustCorey says:

      I found this recipe while looking for something to do with Cub Scouts too! I will be trying it this week. ☺

  21. I would love to make these for my students next week for an independent small group. Would 4 and 5 year olds be able to get the dinosaurs out with a toothpick or similar scraping tool? I don’t want them to use a hammer. I am afraid they might be too hard and the project wouldn’t work.

    1. Crystal @ Surviving a Teacher's Salary says:

      Hi Erin! Yes, as long as they aren’t too hard. The longer you let them dry the harder they are. So I’d say if you make them that week, preferably the day before in a low oven temp, you might be ok?

  22. How many eggs can you make from one recipe?

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