It’s Dinovember!

I have been wanting to have Dinovember since last November when I saw the adorable online postings from the parents who would move a set of plastic toy dinosaurs around their house every night to surprise their children. Refe and Susan Tuma (those creative parents) actually coined the term “Dinovember” and even have a book out about their dinosaurs’ escapades!

I have also been wanting a break from major decorating since the end of our Summer Reading Program, and Dinovember was the perfect opportunity. Basically, we put the kids to work for us by creating this activity station:

Here they color and cut out these dinosaurs that I made using online clipart that I traced with permanent marker. I mainly do this for consistency’s sake, but also to edit the images to make it easier for the younger children. Feel free to download and print out these coloring sheets by clicking the above frame.

Brittany, by far, did the most extensive part of Dinovember: our Great Wall-o-Pun. I sort of forced her to do this one since I freaked out when I saw an episode of Gravity Falls where Mabel puts a dinosaur sticker on someone. I knew at that moment what we had to put on our wall:

I love it SO HARD! And naturally, we feature junior non-fiction books about dinosaurs beneath it. And yes, Jurassic Poop was the first book to be checked out from that display.

Our passive program is a nod to Dinovember’s origins. It’s a scavenger hunt for plastic dinosaurs that we have hidden throughout the library:

To cut down on the kids moving/playing with them, they’re all being hidden well out of reach. Each week we’ll adjust the number and their locations. We started this first week with them in super-obvious places just to help the kids learn what they’re looking for (for the most part – it still seems to throw some).

Finally: the accidental display! I wasn’t even going to put a sign up over the reading bench, and just have fictional dinosaur books featured as a display. However, that all changed when a grandmother asked if we had our Thanksgiving books on display anywhere. Of course, my first thought was: DINOSAUR THANKSGIVING!

I tried really hard to come up with a simple way to point out that turkeys are dinosaur descendants, but failed. The display came together when I did an image search for dinosaur thanksgiving and almost fell out of my chair when I saw this image by Murder Salad:

How perfect is that?! I tweeted to her and asked if we could use her image for a book display (giving her credit) and she very quickly/graciously consented. Here’s what the display ended up looking like:

It’s been a lot of fun watching both kids and parents really take in that image of the Dinosaur Thanksgiving. You should totally check out the other fun images that Murder Salad has created – I think she’s a bit warped like me (in a good way, of course).

And there you have it: Dinovember! It’s been even more fun than I had anticipated, and after the initial push to get the few things we had to get done (right before my vacation – whew!) it has been smooth as butter. Or silk. Or silky butter. Silky smooth dinosaur butter…