How can I foster my three-year-old daughter’s interest in dinosaurs?

[BabyEl]

My daughter has an interest in dinosaurs. It’s not all consuming like Iger love of frozen and princess dresses, but she likes dinosaurs and gets excited by them.

She knows all the names of the major ones in English and as she’s bilingual also in her second language (which is more than I know)

we have taken her to museums and stuff, but I would like to get her some toys. She has a lot of toys and the dinosaur toys generally look like cheap plastic tat.

So I’m looking for something which might get her a little bit more interested in dinosaurs and that she could play with, but that doesn’t turn her off by being nasty and cheap.

bit of a strange request, I know, but any ideas welcome

Carnegie dinosaur collection

These are the replica toys. They are very good.

If you have access to amazon prime, Dino Dana is a good series. About a girl in modern times who has a book that brings dinosaurs to life. Lots of information about each type of dinosaur. For bedroom, dunelm have some lovely stuff from their natural history museum tie in. I rather want the ammonite lamp for me!

I know neither of them are toys, this is more answering on the fostering the interest part.

Books! We got DS a great lift the flap one that’s quite detailed and accurate. Bury fake dino bones and eggs in sandpit so she can dig them out.

https://gb.schleich-s.com/collections/dinosaurs
Their animals in general are good quality, nicely detailed. DD got a lot of play value from hers over the years.

Both of my DD have been exactly like this, the oldest still is at almost 10. I'll echo the PP who suggested Dino Dana, it's a brilliant show and the books are very good too. Depending on where you are in the country I'd recommend a visit to Hoo Zoo, it's dinosaur land is brilliant and really good value too.

Visit the Dorset beaches and jurassic coast.

Visit National History Museum.

Dino Dana. Dino Trackers on you tube. Andy’s Dinosaur Adventures on iPlayer. Harry and his bucket of dinosaurs books. We went fossil hunting in Dorset and to the Mary Anning museum. Natural History museum is good. Loads of adult dino docs on iPlayer. Also the Jurassic World Series is great and the Lego tie ins are brilliant sets. There are guys on Instagram that find fossils that you can buy and open yourself- Yorkshire Fossils I think. So much info out there- and the Dino obsession takes care of its self I found! It’s so good for them and I’ve always encouraged as much of the science in it as possible. Lived and breathed dinos for about 5 years x

My almost 14 year old son has been Dino mad since toddler age ish or whenever he gets became aware of them. We've never had to nurture it as such, but yes Schleich toys are great. I don't know Dino Dana but Andy's Dinosaur Adventures are great and you can see the clock at the Natural History Museum too which is very exciting.
There are Dino dig toys where you unearth a fossil from a rock...my 6 year old niece has been enjoying these for a couple of years. She also has some lovely dino themed but feminine clothes so worth a look too. Of course clothes are clothes, so boy's ones are also fine!!
As PP said the interest takes care of itself so toys and books are great, my boy now chats to AI about dinosaurs and challenges the answers he gets!
The Good Dinosaur is a lovely Disney film too.

Take her to Crystal Palace Park in South London to see the famous dinosaurs there. A great day out!

Oxford natural history museum is great

Thanks for all these great suggestions.

The natural history museum shop online has some interesting dinosaur toys and info

I wouldn’t push it too hard because kids will have their own interest! She went through a dino phase now it’s princesses etc

for us it was just playing it up to her interest when she did have the interest! her dad played her Jurassic park theme songs from about 12 months, she watched Jurassic park form about 14 months and she associated the music so she liked the movie- wasn’t scared so we just played clips from YouTube and she devoured it, we talked about different types of dinosaurs and bought lots of dinosaur stencils for cooking etc, lots of pretend dinosaur role play to make life fun, we played dino Dana on Amazon. On her birthday, her uncle dressed up as a massive dinosaur, lots of dino books and ugly plastic toys from grandparents. Etc But all this was after her interest was sky high. IMHO She wasn’t really interested in the actual dino fossil stuff, it was fleeting if she ever asked lol 😂 it was the excitement of being a dinosaur lol

now it’s full on princesses but I think that’s also because all the girls at preschool are all still wearing frozen dresses and singing the songs. We have dress up box more these days but sometimes it’s dinos. Point is, push too hard and you’ll push her away from the interest

A Mighty Girl dinosaur stuff

Hi OP, I was coming in to recommend these fabulous toys. Also these books

My youngest DS became obsessed with Dinosaurs at 2 and 1/2 and he read all of these and adored those toys.

There is a lovely movie called The Good Dinosaur. (DS still loves that teddy - aged 12!!).

For some reason the books didn’t publish;

Usbourne First book of Dinosaurs
DK book of Dinosaurs
My first encyclopaedia of dinosaurs

The original Walking with Dinosaurs series is available on iPlayer (complete with 1999-style CGI!). My dino-obsessed DS loves it and it's actually quite interesting for grown-ups too 🙂

Loads of good suggestions but I find it odd you saying you don’t want to put her off with cheap toys. A 4 year old has no idea what a toy costs or where it was made, they just play.

there are plenty of people on Facebook market place selling them.

if you’ve been to museums, read books and got toys that’s enough nurturing of an interest at that age and she may well change interest next week

I know what the OP means. When it comes to dinosaur toys a lot of them are cheap crap- tiny little things and not realistic. If your kid is really into dinosaurs, brands like schleich make more realistic toys.

Has she read the series of ‘Harry and his dinosaurs’? Loved those books when mice were little!!

She’s 3. She won’t think a model dinosaur is “nasty and cheap” unless you tell her it is.

but that doesn’t turn her off by being nasty and cheap

I think it's fab that she has an interest and you're doing your best to encourage it. But I wouldn't worry too much.....I've never met a three year old who is bothered by cheap plastic toys. They tend to love that stuff

And I do hate to burst your bubble, OP, but loads and loads of 3 year olds love dinosaurs for very obvious reasons. You don’t have to spend 15 quid each on the Schleib ones-or at least not yet. They are mostly too big and hard for 3 year olds about way. Get a mixed bag of smaller ones and play loads of pretend games with them.

My daughter loves
A First Book of Dinosaurs by Simon Mole and Matt Hunt - gorgeous illustrations! It is quite big so we usually read a section at a time. I would start with something like this over a big dinosaur encyclopaedia
https://amzn.eu/d/7HQXaSb

Ten Minutes to Bed Little Dinosaur - sweet bed time story my 3.5year old loves
https://amzn.eu/d/dXX3dNW

Tyrannosaurus Drip (Julia Donaldson) - fun story about an egg mix up that she enjoys
https://amzn.eu/d/547YWmg

Ten Little Dinosaurs - a nice little story, it says for 1-3 but again my 3.5 year old still requests it a lot
https://amzn.eu/d/gYryDZX

We’ve gotten things like eggs with dinosaurs inside, not the best quality but she loves them and likes to tell strangers that she has eggs that hatch baby dinosaurs lol. We got some dino teddies in Ikea and the zoo before too and a Trex hand puppet that she likes to play with. They tend to sell dino toys at the museums too that are often higher quality.

As someone said Dorset coast has lots of fossils and dinosaur stuff if you are not too far but there are quite a few spots around the UK known for fossils.

Oh if you need to keep her busy on a trip or if you just need to get stuff done around the house dinosaur sticker books are a favourite of my daughters where they have to put the stickers into the scene
https://amzn.eu/d/7dAbweZ

+1 Dino Dana is amazing! And I have that ammonite lamp, I highly recommend it 😁

@BabyEl there are some wonderful children’s books on Mary Anning, one of the first fossil hunters, which she might like?