Fun and Easy Toddler Dinosaur Art: Making Footprints!

Inside: Looking for an easy toddler dinosaur art activity? Make footprints with paint across paper! 

The toddlers in my classroom love dinosaurs.

Every time a dinosaur song plays, the children stop what they are doing, pretending to stomp around to the music.

When I put dinosaur books in our little circle time basket, they are often the first to be chosen.

Actually, when dinosaurs are placed in any of our centers, that area becomes very popular.

So when I was planning art activities for our dinosaur theme, I came up with a fun process art activity that involved toy dinosaurs, paint and paper.

Dinosaur tracks!

Fun and Easy Toddler Dinosaur Art: Making Footprints!

Coming up with this idea was quite easy, since past experience has shown that my toddlers love to paint with toys.

We’ve created rainbow roads using toy cars, walked farm animals in paint, and rolled Duplo trains through paint puddles.

So after I placed our chunky dinosaurs on our train table, I realized they’d be perfect for an art activity, too.

What you’ll need for this toddler dinosaur art:

• Toy dinosaurs (I found the larger sizes to work better)
• Paint
• Paper

Setting up this activity:

Squirt some tempera paint into a container and add a dinosaur.

Place a fresh sheet of paper beside it.

Since we have ten children in our toddler class, I varied the dinosaurs and paint colors.

During the process I invited the children to switch their containers with another child so that they would get a variety of prints and colors.

The process:

As the children sat at the art table, they got to work.

What I love about process art is that there isn’t much instruction needed.

I simply told the children that the dinosaurs had paint on their feet and asked what would happen if the dinosaurs then stomped across the paper.

Once they got the hang of it, they kept on going!

Dipping dinosaur feet into paint and walking them across the paper.

Painting the Dinosaurs!

I always love adding an extra step in an activity, so I gave paint brushes to those with the larger dinosaurs and said they could brush the paint onto the dinosaur’s feet and then make footprints on the paper.

This was another way to add fine motor into the activity, too!

So much concentration as the paint was applied!

Some stopped at this, but others began painting more of the dinosaur.

“I have a purple dinosaur now!”

You know those activities that keep toddlers busy for more than a few minutes?

This is definitely one of those.

More painting activities:

Scrub Painting

Ice Painting

Painting with Fire Trucks