The dinosaurs took over Te Papa yesterday on our ROARsome Family Fun Day, and by all accounts, it went down an absolute treat!

We started by making our own three-dimensional dinosaur tails (and wings, beaks, hats as creativity ensued). These we decorated with all sorts of craft materials and felt pens, making each quite unique to its owner.

The team even got into the fun – here is my Ankylosaurid inspired creation:

Our next activity was a dinosaurumpus.

“Shake shake shudder, near the sludgy old swamp.

The dinosaurs are coming, get ready to romp!”

We decided to get some ideas from the story Bumpus Jumpus Dinosaurumpus by Tony Mitton first, and then, we put our tails to good use! We practiced our dinosaur moves with some action songs, and then we set off on our noisy, roaring, stomping romp from Te Marae on Level 4 all the way down to Awesome Forces on Level 2. We met some other dinosaurs in this space, but unfortunately it seemed they were not inclined to move with us… they did watch us intently though!

Many of the young visitors and their families then joined in cutting out and putting together a T.rex skeleton in Wellington Foyer.

In the afternoon, we put together a fieldwork team and went to excavate the digging pit in Bush City. Among smaller fossils, they discovered a large complete skeleton! While it looked an awful lot like a dinosaur at first glance, we looked closer and discovered it was in fact a Mosasaur – a type of marine reptile that lived with the dinosaurs!

After all the excitement of digging up the past, visitors got to make their own imprint fossils in NatureSpace. There were all sorts of natural materials to push into the clay, even a sheep’s jawbone!

The day finished off with some dinosaur face painting, designed to terrify friends and family!

It was great to see so many visitors (ranging from very young to the young at heart) engaged in dinosaurs and palaeontology, and better still that some families stayed at Te Papa for the WHOLE DAY just so they could take part in everything!

Big thanks must go to Anna Sheffield and Ashley Mackenzie-White for all their support on the day, and to Ati Teepa – our Family Fun Day extraordinaire, who will be well missed as he embarks on his new role at the National Library next month.

Enjoyed this Family Fun Day? Come and get involved in our Waitangi Day Family Activities or have your portrait done on the 6th of Feb!