Dinosaur Crafts for Pre-K
- Pre-kindergarten children can become familiar with dinosaurs by making paper craft dinosaurs. You can draw or print out a basic dinosaur shape and have children glue triangles, circles and squares cut from construction paper to the body to create different kinds of dinosaurs. Using a shoe box, you can make a diorama by gluing dinosaur shapes cut from card stock to the bottom of the shoe box. The children can draw a dinosaur landscape in the shoe box.
- Pre-kindergartners can recreate a dinosaur herd and behaviors using sock puppets. Place a hand in the sock so that the bottom of the sock, where the foot normally goes in, is on top of the hand and the heel of the sock is on top of the wrist. Glue wiggle eyes right above the knuckles. Cut out different shapes from felt fabric to decorate the dinosaur sock. You can glue yellow or green triangles down the middle of the top of the sock to make a spiked spine or circles to make a spotted dinosaur. Children can choose where to glue the shapes and an adult can help them to attach the shapes with fabric glue.
- Pre-kindergartners can recreate dinosaur fossils using modeling clay to make fossil impressions with plastic dinosaur or insect toys, shells, sticks and pine cones. Press a ball of modelling clay into a disc and press a toy or shell into the clay to make an impression. Let the clay dry and have the children paint the fossil impressions. You can also use salt dough mixed with sand or coffee grounds to make it look like a real stone fossil.
- Pre-kindergarten children can create what they imagine a dinosaur egg looked like by decorating eggs. You can use pre-made eggs like Styrofoam eggs or wood eggs and use paints to decorate them. Children can also paper mache balloons with tissue paper and diluted glue and then paint them with tempera paints to make an egg. The Preschool Rock website recommends mixing flour, dirt, sand and water to create realistic looking eggs. Shape the dough into eggs and bake them for 20 minutes. You can even put a small dinosaur toy in the middle of your dough egg and then have the children crack the hardened egg open to hatch the dinosaur toy.
- Pre-kindergarten children can delight in become fossil hunters by digging for dinosaur fossils. Fill a plastic box with sand and dirt and hide sticks, chicken bones, shells and dinosaur toys in different layers. The children can use spatulas and spoons to dig for the dinosaur fossils. You can also create the activity outside in a sand box or garden so that the children can run around while searching for dinosaur fossils.