The SEN Resources Blog

This week we’ve had SO much fun making dinosaur bones from salt dough. A wonderful activity for young children either at home, school or nursery. *

*please please remember salt dough is NOT for eating, it’s just for making. As with all our crafts and activities we do not accept any responsibility, please risk assess all activities yourself.

We’ve previously made salt dough dinosaur ‘fossils’ which were a huge hit, not only with the kids but also across social media. Have a look at how we made Dinosaur Salt Dough Fossils here.

Anyway, back to salt dough dinosaur bones!

What do you need to make them?

• Paint (for when dry)

• 3/4 cup water
• 1 cup salt
• 2 cups flour 

How do you make them?

• It’s really simple, mix the salt and flour together then slowly add the water (keep stirring). Then knead it into dough!

• Make it into dinosaur bone shapes (we did a bit of research and drawing first using a book)

• (Grown ups) Pop in the oven at 180C (until hard, keep checking as the time varies depending on the thickness of the salt dough creations) 

• You can leave salt dough to dry without the oven but we liked that the oven caused the dough to crack a bit, making it look even more realistic!

• Once dry, paint and if you want to keep you could varnish them too.

Which Skills Does it Develop?

• Hand Strength– Because of the kneading,  squashing and moulding of the salt dough- it’s also a brilliant activity for developing hand strength- an important factor in learning to hold and use a pencil. Hand strength and fine motor skills are vital for learning to write.

• Creativity– Fantastic activity for developing creativity and imagination when deciding how best to paint their salt dough creations.