Dinosaur Shape Art

Dinosaurs are such a great theme because we can learn so much about dinosaurs but also learn so much from dinosaurs.

Math, language arts, science, history – it all fits so nicely into a dinosaur theme.

Dinosaur Shape Art

We love the simplicity of books by Byron Barton. There not busy so it’s easy to focus on the illustrations at hand.

Once of our favorite books of all is Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs by Byron Barton.  It’s simple and vibrant and all of my boys have loved it. Since the illustrations are fairly simple, I thought it would be perfect for some shape art!

You can clearly see the different shapes in each dinosaur illustration which makes it great for identifying shapes in art.

I think that being able to see the different shapes that make up a piece of artwork is so valuable when learning to draw. That was a skill I’ve always struggled with and wish I had more experience with as a child.

Make Your Own Dinosaur Shape Art

I wanted to do a simple activity with Royal, so I knew this book would be the perfect fit.  I asked him to flip through and choose his favorite dinosaur, and this is the one he choose!

I gave Royal the brown construction paper to rip into the hills in the background.  Ripping construction paper is great fine motor practice!

While he was busy doing that, I cut out the shapes we’d need to make the dinosaur.

If your child is ready/willing you could trace the shapes and have them cut them out themselves.

Don’t forget to take a minute to discuss what the shapes are! You can even do this when placing them down. Like “hm, I wonder which shape would be good for his tail. A circle?”

Then we started.  First, he glued the hills to the blue paper.

Then I helped him glue the shapes down.  Rectangles for the legs! A half circle for his back.

Lastly we got out some paint and Royal finger painted the plates on the dinos back.

He got really into this step!

Here’s our final Ankylosaurus!