This is one of those neat ways to surprise your kids, a game you can set up while they are otherwise occupied, then greet them with a big mystery… Dinosaurs were in the house! But which ones?

I made circles from our play dough and flattened into discs. You’ll note that play dough colors don’t stay separate around this house!

Next I took various examples of Travis’s toy dinosaurs – both little and big – and made tracks in the play dough. I called him over and exclaimed that we’d had a visit from dinosaurs!

He was skeptical at first, but soon was peering eagerly with the magnifying glass I provided.

Encourage your child to place the dinos over the separate play dough tracks and figure out who made which print; this turns the game into a neat puzzle.

Travis loved pretending the dinosaurs were stuck and he was a real archaeologist having to cut them out.

You can also flip the dinosaurs over and make prints of their backs and sides. This led to some interesting observations, like the bumps on ankylosaurs’ back.

Then he loved the idea of making one big play dough surface that his dinos could stomp across. This went on for quite some time.

If you don’t have plastic dinosaurs, any plastic bug or animal figurines would work great in this game.

One hour of a summer morning occupied? Mommy, for the win!