We love tinker trays in our house. We pull ours out about once a week (Tinker Tuesdays, anyone?) and my daughter, J-Bear (5), never fails to construct something awesome.
But what if you’re doing a dinosaur unit for your children and you want to add a dino-twist to your tinker tray? How would you do that? Continue reading for some ideas.
First, what is a tinker tray? A tinker tray is simply a tray of assorted items with which your child can build, design, or play in creative ways. The materials are often sorted into compartments, and the items can be natural or man-made, craft supplies or doo-dads, beautiful treasures or trash. Collect items as you come across them which might make a good addition to your tray. There are no rules, but generally your tray should have some items that can be assembled along with materials to connect those items together (adhesives or binders of sorts).
This week, I chose to give my kids a tinker tray with the prompt to build a dinosaur. I imagined what I might use to construct a dinosaur of my own. Toilet paper tubes for the body? Craft sticks for the legs and pipe cleaners for long necks? Maybe I’d make a spotted dinosaur using fruity-O cereal, or I’d thread the cereal on pipe cleaners for rainbow limbs. Of course, no dinosaur would be complete without googly eyes.
The possibilities are endless, and your child will likely use each item in ways you couldn’t imagine – which is what makes these types of activities so simple, yet brilliant.
So go around your home, dig through your junk drawer, open up your craft box, art cabinet, or recycle bin, and imagine which items might make for a good dinosaur. Sequins for scales? Ribbon for a tail? A small milk carton for the body? Then present the tray to your child with the prompt to build the coolest dinosaur they can imagine.
J-Bear began her project by attaching paper wings to the cardboard tube.
She tried to glue cut straw pieces as arms but discovered that the glue didn’t hold them well. So this was a good project for discovering which adhesives work best in different situations. When the glue didn’t hold, she decided to tape the straws instead.
Pipe cleaners became legs, while craft sticks became antennae with googly eyes at the ends.
She decided her dinosaur legs needed some armor, so she attached a piece of plastic straw, which she’d cut in half lengthwise.
Finally, a shield and sword attached to the dinosaur’s back.
Meanwhile, J-Fish (4) did not follow the dinosaur prompt – which is ok! She chose, instead, to experiment with gluing a little bit of everything to her cardboard tube.
All finished! We set their creations aside to dry, and the next day they were running all around the house, making their dinosaurs (or non-dinosaurs) fly from room to room.
If your child has never experimented with a tinker tray, I highly recommend it! It is an excellent activity for expressing creativity, developing fine motor skills, and problem-solving (Why won’t school glue hold these items together? Why won’t this thin piece of paper support the weight of these heavy screws?).
*If you like the tray that we used, you can purchase it on Amazon at the link below. But really any compartmented tray will work – even one from the dollar store.
