Huge Dinosaur Activity! Trash-o-saurus Measures in at 9 feet 9 inches by 4 feet 8 inches

We had so much fun with our huge dinosaur project.  A teacher on a website I saw somewhere (sorry, I forget where) mentioned having her class make a “trash-o-saurus.”  I thought that was a brilliant idea, especially as we have SO much packing paper from our move.

We looked around the yard for some items to help us make the structure (bone system) of our dinosaur.  The previous owners left a lot of stuff back in the woods, so we scrounged up some left over wire fencing and formed that into a basic body.  We used sticks for the legs and attached it all together with plastic ties. (It got a head later.)

At that point it was time to bring it into the garage to start working on its “skin.”  We used those packing papers (newspaper sheets) and a paper mache mixture to spread the sheets over the wires.

ED and DD worked with me every step of the way.  LD was quicker to lose interest in the paper-mache phase as he has never liked getting his hands “yucky” (even when he was a tot).

Here trash-o-saurus got meaty legs (wrapping bunches of paper around the sticks and keeping them on with duct tape.

On this day, trashosaurus got a styrofoam head which we attached and covered with more paper mache.

Posing with our finished dinosaur!

We worked on this project for two weeks about every other day. Obviously, I played a huge role in the momentum of this project, but boy do we ALL feel happy about the results. (Though LD made me chuckle when he asked, “Can we have some people over to see it? [a pause] But not kids, they’d just look at it and wouldn’t be as interested in it as adults would.” … “You know it’s like me, I just look at things and then walk on because I would rather play.” (Hmmm… I guess we need to go to more art museums or something?!)

Have you made a trash-o-saurus? We’d love to hear from you in the comments below!

You might be interested in these related posts:

• Dinosaur Body Structure Activity — Marshmallows, Straws and Skewers

• Measuring Dinosaurs Activity
• Dinosaur Fossils Impression Activity
• PreK: Dinosaur Activities
• Feathered Dinosaurs

You might be interested in our 60 page Dinosaur Packet with activities for 3-7 year olds.