Dinosaur Themed Preschool Craft Idea: Dinosaur Reconstruction

We're studying dinosaurs this month and doing some fun crafts to go along with our theme. For this project the boys got to reconstruct a paper dinosaur skeleton. You can print out your own dinosaurs and skeletons from my free dinosaur printables available here.

Preschool (or Tot-school) Craft Idea: Dinosaur Reconstruction

• Dinosaur skeleton drawn or printed out and then cut into pieces
• A piece of paper or a dinosaur coloring page drawn or printed out
• School glue (homemade works great!) or glue sticks
• Q-tips to spread the glue if desired
• Markers or crayons if desired

1. Assemble supplies.
2. I let the boys color the dinosaur coloring pages while I cut out the skeletons, but this is optional.
3. Give the children the skeleton pieces and glue (or glue sticks), and have them glue and arrange the pieces to reconstruct the dinosaur skeleton how they think it should look.

Using plain paper makes this a more open-ended project, and using a coloring sheet to match the skeleton pieces to adds a degree of direction and complexity. My 20-month-old just enjoyed gluing the pieces wherever, but my three-year-old really liked building the dinosaur in the coloring sheet so it looked more like a real dinosaur.

Brachiosaurus skeleton cut apart

Brachiosaurus skeleton I drew

Dinosaur Themed Preschool Craft Idea: Shape-a-saurus

We're studying dinosaurs this month and doing some fun crafts to go along with our theme. The boys had fun making a Shape-a-saurus three different ways. The different ways to make a shape-a-saurus change how open ended the project is and the difficulty level of this project. You can print out your own stegosaurus and correspond shape from my free dinosaur printables available here.

Preschool (or Tot-school) Craft Idea: Shape-a-saurus

• Shapes cut out of construction paper, paper the child has already colored on, or a shape dinosaur print out printed on colored paper or on plain paper and then colored in
• A piece of paper, dinosaur coloring page, or shape dinosaur print out
• School glue (homemade works great!) or glue sticks
• Q-tips to spread the glue if desired

1. Assemble supplies.
2. For a completely open-ended, and the easiet way to do the project, have the child simply design their own dinosaur out of the precut shapes and glue them down.
3. To add a degree of complexity, and give the child some direction in their project, have them try to glue shapes that roughly match the outline of a coloring page.
4. For the most complex way to do this project, have the child match the shape cut outs exactly to a shape dinosaur print out, like a puzzle, and glue them down.
5. For any of these methods talk to your child as they make their picture, and ask them questions about the shapes and colors they are using. This is a great way to start to get a young toddler to see shapes all around them.

This is a great project to review shapes and colors for any toddler, and it can easily be adapted to the child’s individual level. You can create shape pictures for any other theme as well.

Dinosaur Themed Preschool Craft Idea: Archeological Painting

Archeological Painting: T-rex Discovered

Here is another really simple and fun dinosaur themed craft suitable for a preschooler or a tot-schooler. It is basically painting a crayon resist drawing with watercolor paints and making it dinosaur themed to go along with our unit study. The boys had so much fun painting and I was really surprised at how careful both of them were. You can print out your own dinosaur skeletons to trace from my free printables availabe here.

Preschool (or Tot-school) Craft Idea: Painting Dinosaurs and Dinosaur Bones

• Paper and pen or dinosaur coloring sheets
• Watercolor paints (Homemade works great!)
• Paintbrushes
• White crayons or oil pastels

1. Print out some dinosaur coloring pages, or draw dinosaurs and/or their skeletons on some paper.
2. Place a second sheet of paper over the coloring sheet, and trace the outline heavily with white crayon or oil pastel.
3. Have the kids paint over the entire page with watercolor paints to reveal the dinosaur who was hiding there.

The boys had lots of fun painting dinosaur skeletons and regular dinosaur coloring pages. I had thought this project was going to make a much bigger mess, but even Andrew (19 months) was really careful and there wasn't much mess from the paint. What little paint did get on their hands and the table washed off really easily. 

Painting regular coloring pages

Dinosaur Themed Preschool Craft Idea: Popsicle Stick Dino Skeleton

We're studying dinosaurs this month and doing some fun crafts to go along with our theme. This is our first dinosaur creation: a Stick-a-saurus Skeleton. You can print out your own stick-a-saurus outline from my free dinosaur printables available here.

Preschool (or Tot-school) Craft Idea: Stick-a-saurus Skeleton

• Popsicle sticks (for long bones)
• Q-tips, toothpicks, or cut popsicle sticks (for ribs)
• A piece of paper (lines to use as a guide for where the sticks go can be drawn or this can be more of an open-ended project, and you can leave the design totally to the child)
• Small dino head cut out of paper
• School glue (Homemade works great!)
• additional Q-tips to spread the glue if desired

1. Assemble supplies.
2. Have the child spread the glue on the sticks or on the lines for the long bones, and press into place.
3. Then glue the ribs and the head on top, and you're done!
4. The child can name the dinosaur if they want.

My preschooler, Aaron, (who is three years old) was able to follow the lines and make the dinosaur look really good all on his own. My little guy in "tot-school" Andrew (who is 19 months old) just stuck them all over, which is absolutely fine with me. Gluing and sticking at this age is already kind of advanced, and everyone says his project looks like they just discovered the bones at an archeological site. :)