“Kids love the mystery of it,” Jessica Wright, 4-H educational coordinator and event director, said. “Dinosaurs are so big. It almost seems like a fairy tale, but they’re real and roamed the Earth.”

Children created dinosaur masks and feet, customizing them with different colors, then acted the part.

“The kids love all the activities and being dressed up like dinosaurs,” event volunteer Helen Buse said. “They usually stomp around like dinosaurs and growl.”

Four-year-old Ty Brodsky was running around the garden wearing a cape, paper-bag dinosaur feet, a green dinosaur tail and a T-rex shirt.

Brodsky said his favorite dinosaur was the T-rex, although he prefers Batman to dinosaurs and contested Batman could beat them in a fight.

“There isn’t anything in this garden you can do that isn’t fun,” event volunteer Midge Morrow said.

Morrow oversaw the dino-dig, which taught children how to practice archeology.

“They’re being little paleontologists, digging for little dinosaurs and tubes full of stickers,” she said. “The kids just get so excited when they find something. I don’t even care if I get dirty; it’s fun.”

Thursday was 4-year-old Henry Stahl’s first Dinosaur Day. Stahl, a dinosaur fan, participated in all the stations.

“I like their roars, but train whistles are louder than dinosaur roars,” he said.

He added his favorite dinosaurs are the Stegosaurus and Pterodactyl.

“The Pterodactyl is my favoritest because dinosaurs can fly,” Stahl said.

Wright estimates more than 40 children attended the dinosaur event.

“They get to have a fun day to celebrate dinosaurs,” she said. “We try to connect the theme areas of our garden with the events.”

The Children’s Garden features a Dinosaur Garden portion, created 20 years ago because of donations from Jeannie Schoen.

“The plants either date back to the time of the dinosaurs or have a dinosaur name,” Wright said. “A long-neck would have eaten a plant like Ginkgo.”