Kids Craft|Create A Chomping Dino

Looking for a kids craft for your dino lover?

If you haven’t checked out the Little Bee Books “Crunchy Board Books” series, then you’re missing out on some engaging tactile fun with your kids. These chunky board books have adorable illustrations and young children love how the mouths open and close. My son’s favorite is “Dino Chomp!”, because… Dinosaurs.

It’s a rather silly little story, with smaller dinosaurs tricking a large and loud chomping T-Rex who intends to eat them up. There is a tactile element with the “chomping” feature, and lots of onomatopoeia– Crunch! Chomp! Raawr! Kids in the younger set (about age 2-5) will love making dino chomp, chomp, chomp as they growl, roar and crunch their way through the book’s 10 thick cardboard pages.

And if they still can’t get enough of the chomping, here’s a fun way to bring it off the page!

This activity actually happened very much by chance. My husband just happened to purchase a fan with an inner packaging that looked exactly like a big chomping dinosaur mouth. It was this one. It’s amazing, actually, if you want one. It mimics wind and all other fan’s seem inferior in comparison. But… yeah, I’m not here to sell fans. Anyway if you want an awesome fan, and the corresponding box that we used to make our Chompy Dinosaur, I highly recommend it. But, let’s get back to the point.

If you aren’t in the habit of buying fans simply for the sake of crafts, I don’t blame you. You can still do this craft using any small square or rectangular box and craft styrofoam.

Here’s what you will need:

1 small cardboard box

Some Styrofoam (you can get this styrofoam, or another craft styrofoam that is approximately 1-2 inches thick)

Some Green Paint (and brushes) We buy this paint, and we keep it stocked in every color ( I think the green we used for this was from a metallic set of the same brand). But any paint will do.

Some Craft Glue (I’ve always loved this stuff)

Construction Paper– 1 piece white, 1 piece black

Some Scissors

A Marker or some other writing utensil

Step 1: Prepare your dino head.

(If you went all in on the fan, or you have some other very similar packaging you are using, you already have this part, proceed to step 2. )

Cut your box.

Break down your box and cut off the folding flaps and on other side. Your box should look like 3 square panels when laying flat, and should fold up to look like an open mouth.

Cut your teeth.

Use the styrofoam to cut chomping teeth. This is where you can be creative. Your teeth can look however you want. Just make sure that the teeth match the height of the “mouth” you created, and line them up so the mouth can close.

Glue your teeth on the inside of your Dino’s mouth. This gives your chomping dino his big grin.

Step 2: Paint Dino.

This is the part your little can do. My son did all the painting on his own. We went outside to minimize mess. The great thing about the paint we use is that it washes off easy when you want it to. Still, we always go outside when painting to make clean up easy.

Step 3: Next, it’s time to give him eyes.

Draw Circles for the eyes and pupils

Draw two big circles on the white paper and two smaller circles (about 3/4 the size of the white ones) on the black paper. I used two different size candles that I had laying around to make sure the circles were equal size.

Cut out the circles

Depending on how good your child is with scissors, you can have them cut, or you can do it yourself.

Glue the eyes

Once the circles are cut, glue the black circles onto the center of the white circles to makes the eyes. Then apply the eyes to the top of the dinosaur head, about 1/4 of he way down from the top of his head.

Step 4: Let him dry and…

Voila! You have a chomp dino.

The teeth on ours worked out so that my son could hold one top tooth and one bottom tooth to make him CHOMP!. You can always experiment with adding handles to aid in the chomping.

I’d love to see what you guys come up with if anyone decides to try! Please add your attempts on Pinterest if you do!

And really, DO NOT feel like you need to buy the fan.

Happy crafting, Badgers!