Next up from the Wee Folk Activities Archives is our Dinosaur Paper Mache Eggs. This time of year everyone is thinking about cute Easter egg projects and you can easily adapt this project to have an Easter flair if you would like. I had comments from readers the last time around that suggested tucking small prizes into their eggs for a fun treat. You can of course do this with smaller balloons too… if you aren’t going for a Dino Egg.
The kids decided that they wanted to make a dinosaur nest after reading one of the Magic Schoolbus books where Frizzle’s class went looking for Maiasaurus eggs. So it was time to make some paper mache dino eggs.
My mom did this project in her preschool whenever she ran a dino unit. It can be quite messy… of course three kids at the dining room table is nothing compared to the year when I helped in her classroom with 24 students. Yikes! Preschoolers can easily do this project… though in my experience only about 1 in 4 will stick with it long enough to completely cover their egg.
I’ll give you one guess which one of my kiddos completed hers and helped me finish her siblings… Pixie girl of course. You can’t tell me that 2 year olds don’t have amazing attention spans.
Dinosaur Paper Mache Eggs Tutorial
You need one balloon per egg, a bowl to set the balloon in, newspaper shredded into long stripes (my kids loved that part) and a basic mixture of paper mache goo (I used approximately 1 part flour to 1 1/2 parts water mix).
Be sure to cover the entire balloon with paper mache, leaving just the knot exposed. (You might want to cover your table first – ours is a second hand table that we plan to refinish at some point in the future so I generally skip that step). Using a bright colored balloon can help you see any gaps. Try not to make it too thick or it will take forever to dry but you do want solid coverage or the egg will collapse when you pop the balloon.
Once the eggs have dried hard (btw – flip them over in the bowl occasionally so all the sides get air) we will paint them… I will post more when we get to that part.
Dinosaur Paper Mache Eggs Part Two:
https://weefolkart.com/content/paper-mache-dino-eggs-part-two
you know doing paper maché
Submitted by lori (not verified) on Mon, 03/02/2009 – 23:44.
you know doing paper maché puts you in the running for mother of the year, right? ;^)
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So much fun!
Submitted by Lisa (not verified) on Sun, 03/01/2009 – 21:54.
So much fun!
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It would be great to put some
Submitted by Sarena (not verified) on Fri, 02/27/2009 – 14:04.
It would be great to put some plastic or wooden dinosaurs inside the balloons when you blow them up! Then the kids could crack the eggs to find a dinosaur!
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I love this idea and can’t
Submitted by G (not verified) on Thu, 02/26/2009 – 12:19.
I love this idea and can’t wait to see how they turn out!
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This is AWESOME! I can’t wait
Submitted by Rachel (not verified) on Wed, 02/25/2009 – 22:56.
This is AWESOME! I can’t wait to see part two!
I use to love making paper mache as a child. I made vases and bowls and puppet heads. I haven’t thought about its uses as an adult. I am going to make some of these for gifts for my niece and nephews. I always give them tokens for the holidays and I’m thinking of things I could fit into a balloon. Maybe a few rolled up dollars and jelly beans. I’ll come up with something. Thanks for suggesting Easter eggs. I’ll love to see how your little ones finish this project
We make dinosaurs eggs for a homeschool work but they were smaller and diferents (http://dalleuncolinho.blogspot.com/2010/01/huevos-de-pterodactilo.html) you can see them in the link, maybe you can try 🙂
I love yours!
Hugsss
meni ^-^
Those were very clever! Thank you so much for sharing 🙂
I have 3 children, my oldest is 4. I am trying to decide whether or not I want or even have the ability to homeschool next year. I use to visit Wee Folk Activities and Nature’s Way before that. It is blogs like yours that really make me feel like I would love to homeschool. Thank you for all your inspiration and fun activities. With role models like you, I think I’m leaning towards homeschooling.
I’d love to see the finished project, as I’m planning on doing this with my kiddos this weekend!
They do take a couple days to really dry. Part 2 will be posted on Tuesday, March 16. It’s such a lovely, messy project. We love paper mache around here! We’ll want to see your finished dino nest when you are done 🙂
[…] will have so much fun that they won’t want the adventureu00A0to end so send them home with a dinosaur egg. Once they get home, they can crack it open to see what is inside.u00A0One thing is for certain, most […]
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