Paper Plate Dinosaurs

I love this dinosaur craft. I found free templates at The Craft Train that were specifically made to go with paper plates. I printed them out on card stock. When cutting them out, I doubled the number of legs on the template to give the dinosaurs a more three-dimensional look.
First the kids painted half a paper plate using pom poms.

Then they picked which dinosaur they wanted to make and I cut out the pieces. The legs were all attached with glue dots, but either the head or tail was attached with a brass fastener so the kids could move them up and down. Then they added a wiggle eye and decorated them with markers.

I hung them around our Dino Camp sign. (Read more about our Dino Camp here.)

Thanks to The Craft Train for the free templates!

Handprint Dinosaurs

Here's a fun and quick dinosaur project for you! I painted the side of each child's index finger and thumb in a paint color of their choosing.

Then I stamped it onto a piece of paper. It was a little awkward to get the hand into the correct position, but we eventually got the hang of it.

That's the dinosaur's mouth and head! Once dry, the kids drew the rest of their dinosaur. They also used wiggle eyes.

 We had a couple dinosaurs guarding a nest,

 (one of which had a meteor headed straight for the eggs!)

 one taking a shower,

 and one ballerina dino dancing around her eggs!

Giant Dinosaurs

We did a Dinosaur unit a couple weeks ago. It's one of my favorite themes. Since I have a small class this summer, I decided to draw huge dinosaurs for them to color and decorate. I made a T-Rex and a Brachiosaurus (or a Diplodocus or any other "long neck" sauropod dinosaur). I drew them by hand and didn't let my perfectionism get in the way! I actually only drew one of each by hand. The big white paper I used was very thin so I could see through it and was able to trace the others. I rolled the paper up beforehand and when I passed them out to the kids I said, "You get what you get, and you don't throw a fit." They didn't see what they got until they unrolled them! We had to go into another classroom to use their hard floor since coloring on carpet was sure to put a hole in the paper and we wouldn't have had enough room on our tables. The kids unrolled their papers and got to work decorating them!

When they were done, they added big wiggle eyes. During nap I cut them all out and displayed them in the hallway. I also wrote down the names of the dinosaurs using the kids' names. For example, the dinosaur that Liam made was a Liamosaurus.

And Sam's was a Samosaurus Rex.

Her dinosaur had a lovely hat on its head! They turned out great and the kids loved coloring such a big piece of paper.

Dino Hats (and Frog Gifts)

For our last dinosaur craft, we made Stegosaurus hats.

It's very simple. I started by drawing a Stegosaurus on a big piece of white construction paper. (I drew my template freehand, so it's very basic.) Then I cut it out with another piece of paper under it, so I had two dinosaurs. I stapled them together, one staple near the head and one near the tail.

The kids used markers and crayons to decorate both sides.

Then you just open it up by pulling the two pieces of paper apart, and put it on your head! It might need another staple if it's too big.

The kids loved them. They wrote their names on the plates of the Stegosaurus, one letter per plate. So cute!
Today was my last day with many of my kids. So sad! A few days ago I received a frog cookie cutter from one of my sweeties. So I decided to make frog rice krispie treats for their last day.

I added green food coloring to the marshmallows. For the eyes, I used cinnamon discs to make them red-eyed tree frogs, my favorite. M&Ms would probably be better, but I didn't have any. I used some chocolate frosting I had leftover in the fridge to "glue" the eyes on.

Doesn't look very appetizing, does it? But they tasted great! The same girl also gave me a frog mood ring.

I wore it the rest of the week and the kids were always interested in what color it was. Black means stressed, so whenever the kids got a little out of control I would say, "Uh-oh, my frog is turning black!" And it worked! The kids would settle down right away! (The purple color you see above means romantic. I had a heck of a time explaining that one to the kids!) Another little girl got me this cute frog notebook.

I can't wait to write notes in it! And yet another girl got me this frog made out of forks and spoons.

How cool is that? Do you think I talk to my class about my obsession with frogs too much? :o)

Dinosaur Stomp

Today's circle time book was Saturday Night at the Dinosaur Stomp by Carol Diggory Shields.

I love love love this book. But in all the years I've been teaching about dinosaurs, I've never read it. That's because I have the tape story! Yes, cassette tape. It's very old school. I got it through a Scholastic book order many years ago. I always have my eyes out for the CD, but so far no such luck. The tape story is actually the song-version of the book and it's so fun to listen to! After listening to it while looking at the book, we had our own version of a dinosaur stomp. I found extra thick craft foam at Michaels and cut out three different dino footprints. I just drew them by hand, so nothing fancy. Then I cut them out and stuck pipe cleaners into them to make handles. I also taped the ends just in case.

See how thick the foam is?

I put some paint on paper plates and rolled out some big white paper onto the table. The kids used them just like normal stamps, but they pressed down on the feet to get a good print. And the paper stuck to the foam, so they had to hold the paper down when lifting up the stamp.

I had two kids at a time come over to the table to make some footprints.

Once it got filled up, we let it dry .

My plan was to put "Dinosaur Stomp" on it with stencils, but when I went to get the letters I couldn't find them. So I just quickly wrote "Saturday night at the Dinosaur Stomp" on it and hung it on the wall.

Not very fancy, but it's only up for a couple days. We have one more day of Dino Camp, and then I have to take everything down. It's been an exciting week!

Dinosaur Tooth Necklaces

I told the kids I went back in time and pulled some dinosaur teeth. They didn't believe me. Smart kids! I used Crayola's Model Magic to make some teeth.

I just formed it into a tooth-like shape. Then I used one end of a paper clip to poke a hole all the way through. I wiggled it around a bit to make the hole big enough to thread string through. I taped down one end of some string and put out some pony beads and cut up straws.

The kids put some on the string,

then picked out a tooth. I helped them string the tooth on because it was a little tricky. Then they added more beads and straws. I love the bright colors against the white tooth.

I made the mistake of making the teeth only one day before the craft. They weren't quite hard enough today, but we did the project anyway. I thought of keeping the teeth one extra day, but you try telling a class of dino lovers that they can't take them home just yet! So I let them wear the necklace for a picture, but then they were hung in their cubbies till the end of the day. One more day of drying should work.

These teeth wouldn't be from a T-Rex, of course. Their teeth were as big as bananas! Although some kids said they could be from a baby T-Rex. I told them they could pretend it came from any dinosaur they wanted, but we all agreed they probably belonged to a meat-eater. (See? Even though the kids knew the teeth were fake, they still make-believed with me throughout the whole project!)