Dinosaur Crafts for Kids: 20 Easy Projects for Pre-K, Kindergarten and Rainy Afternoons

It's dinosaur week in the classroom, or it's raining and someone has been roaring at the cat since breakfast. These dinosaur crafts are built for that: twenty projects that use what's already in a kitchen drawer or a classroom supply cupboard, sorted by age, with honest notes on how long each one takes and how much mess it makes.

A few of them also sneak in a real fact. A Stegosaurus with its plates in the right place is no harder to make than one with them wrong, and the kid who made it will remember.

Quick picks: which dinosaur craft for which kid

If you only have ten minutes and no paint, skip to the clothespin dinosaur. If you have a class of twenty-five, the printable stick puppets scale best.

Pre-K dinosaur crafts (ages 2–4)

At this age the craft is the process. They want to stamp, smear, tear and stick, and they'll lose interest in anything with more than three steps. Do the cutting yourself beforehand and let them do the fun part.

1. Handprint T. rex

The classic hand dinosaur craft, and a keepsake as much as a craft.

1. Paint the child's palm and four fingers green (leave the thumb out, or paint it too for a longer neck).
2. Press it onto paper with the fingers pointing down. The fingers are the legs; the palm is the body.
3. Once dry, add a head and a tail with marker, plus an eye and a toothy grin.
4. Write the child's name and the date underneath.

For a long-neck dinosaur instead, paint the thumb too and turn the paper so the thumb sticks up and out. Washable tempera comes off small hands with soap and warm water; acrylic does not, so check the label.

2. Fingerprint dinosaur eggs

Draw a nest (a brown scribble works fine) and let them press fingerprints in a cluster on top. Each fingerprint is an egg. Older preschoolers can add a tiny face peeking out of one. It takes ten minutes and pairs well with the Hatching Dino Eggs coloring page, which has the same idea on a bigger scale.

3. Torn-paper dinosaur

Print or draw a simple dinosaur outline. Give them strips of green, brown and orange paper to tear into pieces and glue inside the lines. Tearing is good fine-motor practice for three-year-olds, and it doesn't matter if the pieces go over the edge. A glue stick is less frustrating than liquid glue at this age.

4. Paper plate Stegosaurus

1. Fold a paper plate in half. That's the body; it stands up on its own.
2. Cut a head and four stubby legs from card and glue them on.
3. Cut triangles (or let them choose shapes) and glue them along the fold for plates.
4. Glue four spikes at the tail end.

Teach-the-fact version: real Stegosaurus had about 17 plates in two staggered rows, not one row of matching triangles, and four tail spikes, which paleontologists jokingly call a thagomizer. Let kids glue two rows, alternating, and count the spikes out loud.

5. Clothespin dinosaur

The fastest craft on this list. Cut a dinosaur body (no legs) from card, let the child color it, then clip two clothespins on the bottom edge as legs. It stands up. Add more clothespins along the back for spikes. Clipping clothespins is hard work for small hands, which is exactly why preschool teachers like it.

6. Dinosaur footprint stamps

Cut a three-toed footprint from a kitchen sponge (a simple triangle with three blunt toes). Dip it in paint and let them stomp tracks across a long sheet of paper. Most meat-eating dinosaurs, T. rex included, walked on three main toes, so the shape is right. Make a second, rounder footprint for a long-neck and you've got two dinosaurs crossing paths.

Dinosaur crafts for kindergarten (ages 5–6)

Kindergartners can follow four or five steps, cut along a thick line with child-safe scissors, and stick with something for half an hour. These dinosaur crafts for kindergarten give them a real thing to take home.

7. Paper bag dinosaur puppet

1. Lay a brown or white lunch bag flat with the folded bottom at the top. The flap is the mouth.
2. Glue a dinosaur head (cut from card, or drawn by the child) on the flap.
3. Glue a row of white triangle teeth just under the flap so they show when the mouth opens.
4. Add spikes down the back of the bag and two little arms on the sides.

Use it for a puppet show, or for reading the dinosaur poems out loud: the fingerplays there were written to be acted out.

8. Salt dough fossils

The craft kids are proudest of, because it looks like a real fossil.

Dough: 1 cup plain flour, ½ cup salt, about ½ cup water. Mix the flour and salt, add the water slowly, and knead for a few minutes until it's smooth and not sticky.

1. Roll it out about ½ inch thick and cut circles with a glass or cookie cutter.
2. Press a plastic toy dinosaur's feet into the dough to make tracks, or press the whole toy in sideways for a "skeleton" print. Shells and leaves work too.
3. Bake on a lined tray at a low oven temperature (around 200°F) for 2–3 hours, until hard all the way through. Or leave them to air dry for two to three days, turning once a day.
4. Once cool, brush them with watered-down brown paint and wipe most of it off. The paint stays in the prints and they look old.

Raw salt dough isn't food, and it's very salty; keep an eye on toddlers and on dogs.

What it teaches: most dinosaur "fossils" kids see are bones that turned to rock, but tracks fossilize too. A trace fossil is any sign a living thing left behind: footprints, nests, even droppings (which gets a big reaction).

9. Egg carton Stegosaurus

Cut a strip of four cups from a cardboard egg carton. Turn it upside down: the cups are the humped back. Paint it, glue a card head on one end and a tail on the other, and slot card plates into small cuts along the top. Cardboard cartons take paint; foam ones don't, so use cardboard.

10. Paper plate dinosaur mask

Cut eyeholes in a paper plate and cut a jagged row of teeth along the bottom edge. Kids paint or color it, then add spikes or horns along the top. Tape a craft stick to one side as a handle, or staple on elastic. A stick handle is easier for a class: no fitting, and it's quick to lower if they can't see.

For a Triceratops mask: one short horn on the nose, two long ones above the eyes, and a big half-circle of card behind the plate for the frill. Triceratops means "three-horned face," so kids can check their work by counting.

11. Shape dinosaurs

Pre-cut circles, triangles, rectangles and half-circles in different colors. Ask kids to build a dinosaur from them: a half-circle body, rectangle legs, a triangle tail. There's no right answer, and it doubles as a shape lesson. Ask each kid to name the shapes in their dinosaur when they're done.

12. Pasta skeleton

Draw a dinosaur outline on dark paper. Kids glue dry pasta inside it as bones: tubes for the spine and legs, bows or shells for the ribs, a spiral for the tail. It's a good way to start a conversation about how scientists rebuild skeletons from the bones they find.

Printable dinosaur crafts (ages 4–8)

Printable dinosaur crafts save the most prep, and they're the easiest way to run the same craft for a whole class. Any bold black-and-white line art works. The coloring pages in our dinosaur printables collection are the T-Rex Volcano, Stegosaurus Jungle and Hatching Dino Eggs pages, drawn with thick outlines and big shapes for small hands. The listings include a family and classroom license, so a teacher can print a copy for every student. Print on light cardstock for anything that has to stand up or hold a stick.

13. Stick puppets

Color the page, cut around the dinosaur (an adult does the tricky bits), and tape a craft stick to the back. That's the popsicle stick dinosaur craft in its simplest form. Make two and you have a show.

14. Stand-up dinosaurs

Color, cut out, then glue the dinosaur to a folded strip of card, or cut a slot in the base and slide in a second piece of card as a stand. Line them up across a windowsill for a museum display.

15. Coloring-page puzzle

Once a page is colored, glue it to cardboard from a cereal box, draw four to eight puzzle shapes on the back, and cut it apart. A homemade puzzle gets played with far longer than the coloring page did. If they get hooked, our dinosaur jigsaw puzzles are the step up.

16. Alphabet dinosaurs

For pre-K and kindergarten letter work, print the ABC Dinos alphabet printable, cut it into letters, and have each child decorate their own initial. "D is for dinosaur" makes a good first page for a class book.

Dinosaur crafts that teach a real fact

A craft is a good place for a fact, because a kid builds it with their hands and keeps it on the fridge for a month. Five builds that get the science right:

17. Feathered Velociraptor

Movies made Velociraptor scaly and human-sized. Fossils show it was about turkey-sized, and a forearm bone found in 2007 has the little bumps where feathers attach. So this one gets feathers.

Draw or print a slim, long-tailed dinosaur on card. Kids glue craft feathers (or torn tissue paper) along the arms and tail. Explain that birds are living dinosaurs, then ask them to name a bird they saw this week.

18. Ankylosaurus with a tail club

Paper plate folded in half for the body, then cover the top with bumpy things for armor: bottle caps, buttons, crumpled foil, or thumbprints of paint. Add a ball of scrunched paper at the end of the tail for the club. Ankylosaurus swung it like a hammer.

Dinosaur crafts for older kids (ages 7–12)

Older kids want something that looks good and takes more than one sitting.

19. Toilet roll dinosaurs

Paint a cardboard tube, then cut a long neck and head, a tail and four legs from card and slot them into small cuts in the tube. Making a whole herd (a Stegosaurus, a long-neck, a Triceratops) from the same tube is a design challenge, and it suits kids who like to plan. Let paint dry before you cut, or the cardboard tears.

20. Papier-mâché dinosaur egg

Paste: 1 part flour to 2 parts water, mixed smooth. Or use watered-down white glue.

1. Blow up a balloon to egg size (a smallish one) and tie it.
2. Dip strips of newspaper in paste, wipe off the excess, and layer them over the balloon. Three or four layers.
3. Let it dry completely, overnight at least.
4. Pop the balloon, cut a jagged crack in the top, and paint it.
5. Put a small toy dinosaur inside, or a baby dinosaur made from clay.

Messy and slow, and the best craft on the list for a nine-year-old. Cover the table and use old clothes.

Dinosaur crafts for adults: the egg, the salt dough fossils and the stand-up printables all scale up nicely for a dinosaur-themed baby shower or a grown-up's birthday table. Painted salt dough fossils make good place cards.

A supply list for dinosaur week

Most of these dinosaur crafts share the same supplies. Stock this once and you can run a craft a day:

• Paper plates (the cheap uncoated kind take paint and glue best)
• Light cardstock in green, brown, orange and white
• Glue sticks for small kids, white liquid glue for older ones
• Washable tempera paint and a few chunky brushes
• Child-safe scissors
• Craft sticks, clothespins, cardboard tubes, a cardboard egg carton
• Flour and salt (salt dough and papier-mâché paste)
• A plastic toy dinosaur or two, for prints
• Dinosaur coloring pages, printed on cardstock

Running a dinosaur craft for a class or a party

• Prep the cutting. For under-fives, cut every piece in advance. It's the difference between a calm 20 minutes and a chaotic hour.
• One craft, three stations. For a class, split into color, cut-and-glue and finishing tables, and rotate.
• Pick low-mess crafts for parties. Clothespin dinosaurs, stick puppets and masks are quick, need no drying, and go home in a party bag. Save paint and salt dough for days when you have time to clean up.
• Name and date everything. It matters to the parents more than you'd think.
• Have a reward ready. A dinosaur sticker for every finished craft keeps a room of five-year-olds going.

Planning a party around it? The dinosaur birthday party guide covers food, games and invitations, and the masks and puppets here make a good party activity. For dress-up day, the kids' dinosaur apparel collection and our toddler dinosaur clothes cover the costume part without a costume.

FAQ

What is the easiest dinosaur craft for a 3-year-old?

The clothespin dinosaur or the fingerprint eggs. Both take about ten minutes, need no paint drying time, and a three-year-old can do every step once an adult has cut the card. The handprint T. rex is just as easy but needs paint.

What dinosaur crafts work for pre-K?

Anything with stamping, tearing or sticking: the handprint T. rex, footprint stamps, torn-paper dinosaurs, fingerprint eggs and the paper plate Stegosaurus. Keep it to three steps or fewer and do the cutting in advance.

How do you make salt dough dinosaur fossils?

Mix 1 cup flour, ½ cup salt and about ½ cup water into a smooth dough. Roll it ½ inch thick, cut circles, press a toy dinosaur's feet or body into each one, then bake at around 200°F for 2–3 hours or air dry for two to three days. Rub with watered-down brown paint for an old look.

How long does salt dough take to dry?

Two to three hours in a low oven for pieces about ½ inch thick, longer for thicker ones. Air drying takes two to three days. If it's still soft in the middle, it isn't done; it will crack or go moldy if you paint it too early.

What's a good dinosaur craft for a whole class?

Printable stick puppets or masks. Print one coloring page per child on cardstock, color, cut and add a stick. It's cheap, low mess, and every child goes home with the same thing, which avoids a lot of trouble.

Are your dinosaur coloring pages free?

No. They're digital downloads: $3.99 each, or $7.99 for the 3-pack. Each one comes as 8×10 and 11×14 PNG and PDF files plus a US Letter PDF, and the license covers printing as many copies as you need for your own family or your own classroom. Nothing ships, so there's no shipping cost.

How do I make a dinosaur craft teach something?

Build in one true detail and say it out loud while they work: two fingers on a T. rex, two rows of Stegosaurus plates, three horns on a Triceratops, feathers on a Velociraptor. The table above has five.

Start with one

If you're starting dinosaur week on Monday, print the dinosaur coloring pages 3-pack on cardstock and you've got three of these crafts ready: color them on Monday, turn them into stick puppets on Tuesday, and cut one into a puzzle on Wednesday.