Chalk Pastel Dinosaurs

LOVE the cheeky grin on this guy

Any dinosaur project tends to be a big hit with elementary students. Grade 3 kids had a blast with this project and I was super thrilled with the variety of dinos the kids created.

I was inspired by the wonderful dinosuar project posted on 

one of my favourite blogs: Deep Space Sparkle. 

She did hers with Grade 1 students and they are all adorable.

So, to start, have kids research different dinosaurs (internet, books, posters, whatever you have) and have them choose one to re-create. They loved discussing all they knew about dinos and they really get into it! 

I demonstrated on the board how to draw a simplified dinosaur, to look at it's 

overall shape and pick out the main parts to draw. 

We ideally want these drawings to be bold and fairly simple. Sometimes kids at this age can get too caught up in tiny details and trying to get the drawing 'just right' then it's too small and detailed and tricky to colour with chalk pastels...

So the kids then draw their good copy on large black construction paper. I really model and encourage the kids to 'fill the space' - draw BIG!! If there's large areas of empty space leftover, kids can add a sun, clouds, stuff in the background, whatever they want.

Once drawn in pencil, pass over all the lines with a black wax crayon or black oil pastel.

Once outlined, kids colored them in using chalk pastels. Roll up sleeves- this media is M-E-S-S-Y.

Kids could color these however they wanted- fantasy-like or realistic- it was up to them.

I encourage blending to blend out the colours- fingers work fine but many kids prefer using a tissue.

Ta da!

love the eeevil sun...and scared look on the dinos face...

I believe this is supposed to be a Pterodactyl but it really reminds me of
the winged alien creatures from the movie "Pitch Black"  creeeeepy