How to Make Paper Dinosaurs

Creating dinosaur crafts is a simple way to learn about these beasts.

Creating dinosaur-focused crafts is entertaining for kids, allowing them to imagine what these prehistoric beasts looked like and to execute their imagined designs on paper. Furthermore, such crafts serve as springboards for educational discussions or lessons about specific types of dinosaurs, their eating and hunting habits, and speculation regarding their behavior. You can create an origami dinosaur as a base model and then decorate it to fashion it into more specific types of dinosaurs.

Things You'll Need

• 6 inch origami paper
• Glue
• Spiked or pointy metallic beads
• Tape
• Scissors

Instructions

1. Lay a piece of origami paper in front of you with the colored side down. Pull the top right corner down to meet the lower left corner. Make a firm crease along the diagonal. Unfold the paper.

2. Turn your square so that it resembles a diamond, with the diagonal fold that you just made cutting vertically through the middle.

3. Pull the right corner to the middle crease. Fold down. Repeat with the left corner.

4. Turn your piece over, and fold the bottom point up to the top point. You are essentially folding the piece in half.

5. Flip your piece over. You should have a right and left flap at the bottom of the piece.

6. Pull the right flap toward you. As you pull the right flap toward you, push the right corner of this flap down. Flatten it out. You will now have a skinny triangle. Repeat with the left flap. You will now have a skinny diamond shape.

7. Pull the top point of the diamond down towards the bottom point and press down into place. This move will enlarge your diamond shape. Flip your piece over. You will see an identical diamond but with a middle protruding flap that sticks out.

8. Turn your piece so that the top point of the diamond is now at the bottom. Pull the middle protruding flap downward, and press it into place. It should rest flat against the lower end of the diamond.

9. Fold the diamond in half vertically outward, thus revealing the middle line that runs vertically through the diamond as opposed to concealing it. You will now have a very skinny triangle with a small triangular flap sticking out of the top side and out of the bottom side.

10. Fold the small triangular flap on the top of the skinny triangle in half toward its bottom crease. This folding action will cause it to stick straight up. Repeat with the small triangular flap on the other side of your piece.

11. Turn your piece so that the longest side of your skinny triangle is on the right. Fold the very top point of the triangle 1/2 inch downward. Unfold. Fold it downward again, but do so on a diagonal so that the top point points directly to the left. Unfold.

12. Stick your finger into the interior of the piece by the top point on the right side. Push inward so that the middle crease becomes unfolded and puffs straight up. Put your thumb and forefinger on either side of the piece.

13. Grab the puffed-up middle crease and fold it down, creating a reverse fold. You will now have the pointy head of the dinosaur, with two protruding right and left corners. Flatten the right and left corners on top of your thumb and forefinger.

14. Insert your forefinger and thumb into the interior of the area below the head, the dinosaur's body. Puff it out slightly.

15. Grab the far end of the piece, the dinosaur's tail, and fold it to the halfway point and diagonally so that it sticks straight up.

16. Glue metallic spiked beads to the back to make the dinosaur resemble a stegosaurus, or add a spiked bead to the tip of the head to make a dinosaur similar to the styracosaurus. Alternatively, cut the head away from the body, and tape a folded strip of paper to the base of the dinosaur. Then tape the head to the strip of paper to make the dinosaur resemble a long-necked brachiosaurus or argentinosaurus.

References

• Sevenload: Origami Baby Dinosaur

Resources

• Enchanted Learning: Paper Crafts