When my son was 3 he was obsessed with dinosaurs! He still has an interest in them now he’s almost 10. This paper mache dinosaur world that we created is great for all those dinosaurs.
Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs Everywhere!
With all the dinosaurs that we had, we wanted to make somewhere for him to play with them that looked like a ‘dinosaur world’
We had a train table that wasn’t really getting used for his trains much so we started making use of it in other ways.
It was the perfect size for my son to sit at with his cars or animals. So we thought why not give the dinosaurs somewhere to live lol!
Making Our Paper Mache Creations
We needed some tunnels and caves but couldn’t really find anything that worked, so we decided to make them from paper mache. We had only really tried out paper mache once before so we thought we’d give it a try.
The only problem is that when you make paper mache you have to be patient and let it sit overnight before you can actually paint it and then play with it. So it was a bit of a process for my 3 year old but fun non the less. And it is also great to get him involved in it all.
Paper Mache is a process for sure!
We just used 1 cup of water with 1 cup of flour. It becomes like a consistency of glue and will dry hard once its dry. We covered a bowl and a plastic bottle to get the shapes we needed. Our paper mache models took about 24 hours to dry.
Then we got to work painting them. We went for grey so that it would blend in with our ‘dinosaur world’
Putting Our World Together
Whilst our creations were drying off we got to work creating our dinosaur world. We put out fake grass and trees. Added some rocks and used a tray to add sand to. We also had some sandpaper in our craft drawers that we used for our area too.
Our tunnel and cave were added and we also made a miniature volcano too. We added red, yellow & orange tissue paper for the fiery lava! My son loved having somewhere to hide his dinosaurs.
Hatching An Egg
For added fun we hatched a ‘dino’ egg in water. It was one of those eggs that expand in water and crack one to expose a creature. In this case it was our dinosaur 😍 Perfect for our little dinosaur world!!
My son loved making his dinosaur world and played with it for days. Not only did we do some crafting but we read lots of dinosaur stories and learnt all the names of the dinosaurs too.
We have made paper mache items since this and its always turned out okay. Its very easy to make however I will say very messy!!
I know some kids don’t like getting their hands too sticky and messy (my daughter being one of them lol) But you can always do the messy part for them and get them to help set up their Dino world!
More Dinosaur Fun
And if you loved our paper mache dinosaur world check out these dinosaur fossils that we made at home using clay.
Another fun way to use those dinosaurs!
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