Paper Plate Dinosaur Craft for Kids

Turn a paper plate into a colorful dinosaur with this easy craft for kids!

This easy Paper Plate Dinosaur Craft is a fun activity for preschoolers, kindergarteners, and up. With a paper plate, paint, and a few basic craft supplies, kids can create their own colorful dinosaur complete with a long neck, tail, legs, and spikes.

Encourage children to customize their dinosaur with spots, stripes, fingerprints, or other fun patterns. They can even change the shape of the head, neck, or tail spikes to create a collection of different dinos. Cutting, coloring, and gluing the pieces also gives children opportunities to practice fine motor skills while getting creative.

Looking for even more prehistoric fun? Be sure to explore our collection of Dinosaur Activities for Kids, including coloring pages, games, printables, crafts, and more.

While this dinosaur craft for preschoolers is designed to be simple for young children, we recommend having adult supervision available, especially when cutting the paper plate and construction-paper pieces.

What You’ll Need for Your Paper Plate Dinosaur Craft

• Paper plate
• Construction paper or card stock
• Washable paint and paintbrush, crayons, or markers
• Child-safe scissors
• Craft glue or glue stick
• Googly eye
• Black marker
• Toilet paper or paper towel roll

Optional decorating supplies:

• Tissue paper
• Stickers
• Sponge or cotton swab for painting
• Additional construction-paper shapes

Instructions for Making a Paper Plate Dinosaur

Step 1: Cut the Paper Plate and Toilet Paper Roll

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Have an adult cut a paper plate in half. One half of the plate will become your dinosaur’s large, rounded body.

Next, prepare the legs. You can either cut one toilet paper roll into four equal pieces for shorter legs or cut two toilet paper rolls in half for longer legs.

Tip: Save the other half of the plate for another dinosaur or a future craft!

Step 2: Color or Paint the Dinosaur’s Body & Legs

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Use washable paint, crayons, or markers to color the paper plate and dino legs. Your dinosaur can be green, blue, purple, orange, rainbow-colored, or any color you like!

Add spots, stripes, dots, fingerprints, or other patterns to make your dinosaur unique.

If you’re using paint, let the plate and toilet paper rolls dry before moving on to the next step.

Step 3: Make the Head, Neck, and Tail

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Choose a piece of construction paper that matches or complements your dinosaur’s body color.

Draw and cut out a long neck with a small rounded head and a pointed tail. Since the cardboard tube pieces will become the dinosaur’s legs, there’s no need to cut legs from construction paper.

Younger children may need an adult to draw or cut these pieces. Older preschoolers can practice cutting the larger, simpler shapes with child-safe scissors.

Step 4: Add the Dinosaur’s Spikes

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Cut several triangles from construction paper to create spikes along your dinosaur’s back.

Make the spikes all one color, alternate different colors, or experiment with different sizes and shapes.

Tip: For younger preschoolers, adults can cut the triangles ahead of time so kids can focus on choosing and gluing their spikes.

Step 5: Glue Your Dinosaur Together

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Glue the head and neck to one end of the paper plate and the tail to the other. Then glue the spikes along the curved edge of the dinosaur’s back.

Once the glue is dry, cut a small slit into the top of each cardboard tube leg. Gently slide the straight bottom edge of the paper plate into the slits so the dinosaur stands upright. An adult may need to help with cutting the slits.

Adjust the legs as needed to help your dinosaur stand securely.

Step 6: Give Your Dinosaur a Face

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Glue a googly eye onto your dinosaur’s head. Use a black marker to draw a mouth and nostril.

You can also give your dinosaur a silly smile, tiny teeth, eyelashes, eyebrows, or any other facial features you’d like.

No googly eyes? Cut an eye from paper or simply draw one with a marker.

Try Making Different Paper Plate Dinosaurs

Once you know how to make the basic dinosaur paper plate craft, try changing some of the pieces to create different dinosaurs.

Stegosaurus: Add large plates along the dinosaur’s back and small spikes to its tail.

Long-Necked Dinosaur: Give your dinosaur an extra-long neck, small head, four legs, and a long tail.

T. Rex: Create a larger head, two tiny arms, two big legs, and a thick tail.

Triceratops: Add a large paper frill behind the head along with three simple horns.

Kids can also invent their very own dinosaur species. Invite them to experiment with different colors, spikes, horns, tails, and patterns.

Fun Ways to Decorate Your Dinosaur

There are lots of ways to make each paper plate dinosaur look different. Kids can:

• Fingerpaint colorful spots
• Add stripes or zigzags with markers
• Sponge-paint different textures
• Glue on small pieces of tissue paper
• Add colorful construction-paper shapes
• Decorate with stickers
• Mix several colors together

Questions to Ask Your Child During the Activity:

• How many spikes does your dinosaur have?
• What colors did you choose for your dinosaur?
• Does your dinosaur have spots, stripes, or another pattern?
• What would you name your dinosaur?
• What do you think your dinosaur likes to eat?
• Where do you think your dinosaur lives?
• How could you make another dinosaur look different from this one?

These simple questions encourage counting, color and shape recognition, creativity, and conversation while children craft.

More Dinosaur Fun from ABCmouse

If your child enjoyed making this Paper Plate Dinosaur Craft, keep the prehistoric fun going with even more dinosaur activities from ABCmouse!