Rainy Day Projects

Dinosaurs Paper Crafts for kids

Folding, cutting, and printable-based projects that need nothing but paper and scissors.

Part of Dinosaurs activities and all paper crafts.

No-prep ideas for this

Something to say right now while you get the dinosaurs set out — or instead of it. All the quick ideas.

  • Stomp around like a dinosaur and I will try to guess what kind you are.

    Stomp around the room pretending to be a dinosaur and narrate what you are doing out loud. Every few steps, freeze and roar. The adult guesses what kind of dinosaur you are based on your moves.

    15 minutes · Ages 3–8 · Adult alongside · No mess · Needs nothing

  • Teach me everything you know about one dinosaur — give me a lecture.

    Pick one dinosaur you know well and give the adult a lecture: where it lived, what it ate, and one surprising fact. Then answer two questions the adult asks.

    30 minutes · Ages 5–10 · Adult alongside · No mess · Needs nothing

    Make more of it: Natural History Museum Curator Setup →

  • Show me four totally different dinosaur roars.

    Make a different roar for four dinosaurs — a tiny one for a small dinosaur, a slow low one for a huge one, a scared one, and your scariest one.

    5 minutes · Ages 3–8 · Adult alongside · No mess · Needs nothing

Dinosaurs Paper Crafts at home

Paper crafts and dinosaurs fit together for a specific reason: children who love dinosaurs tend to already think in details — they know which period a stegosaurus lived in, they can tell you what a fossil is and how it forms, and they want the things they make to reflect that knowledge. Paper lets them act on it with nothing more than what is already in the house. These three activities work with that existing obsession rather than sitting on top of it. The trail records where a dinosaur walked, the accordion figure captures the distinctive silhouette of a stegosaurus, and the fossil card encodes actual geological thinking. Each one results in something your child will want to explain to another person.

What is in this set

The three dinosaurs Paper Crafts activities here run from 20 to 55 minutes — Torn-Paper Dinosaur Footprint Trail is the quickest, Cross-Section Fossil Excavation Card the longest. Between them they cover ages 3–5, ages 5–8 and ages 8–10, and each card below says which. Each one wants an adult at least nearby.

Choosing one

Reach for the Torn-Paper Dinosaur Footprint Trail with children three to five, especially if scissors are still a stretch — tearing is the whole skill, and the result comes quickly. The Accordion-Fold Stegosaurus Wall Figure suits five- to eight-year-olds with moderate patience and a ten- to fifteen-minute attention window to spare; it has the most satisfying pop when the plates stand up. The Cross-Section Fossil Excavation Card is the right pick for an eight- to ten-year-old who can sit with a measuring step and wants something that does something — it opens, it reveals, it has a presentation moment built in.

Before you start

For all three activities, pull out your paper supply and check it before calling anyone over: the footprint trail needs dark paper for tearing, the stegosaurus needs at least five clean sheets, and the fossil card needs four distinct neutral colors. Scissors are used in all three; check that the pair you hand a child actually cuts cleanly, because a blade that drags causes more tearing and frustration than anything else across all these projects. The one thing that goes wrong most often is glue applied too thickly — set a glue stick, not a bottle, within reach by default.

More dinosaurs activities

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