Chocolate + a picture book! Yummy fun!
In I’m a Hungry Dinosaur by Janeen Brian (illustrated by Ann James), the illustrations are created with cocoa powder, chocolate, and sprinkles. Of course, my preschooler needed to give painting with chocolate a try herself! I’m a Hungry Dinosaur is simply delightful.In this book, the dinosaur is eager to eat a chocolate cake so he mixes it, bakes it, and decorates it. As mentioned, the three dimensional look makes the illustrations even more engaging, and the playful rhyme make the book a fun read aloud.
Supplies for Painting with Chocolate
We decided to make our paintings on plain white paper. We needed a few other resources in order to do our painting with chocolate party.
- paper
- markers or pens (not washable)
- powdered cocoa
- chocolate sauce
- chocolate milk (or mixed it with water)
- other chocolatey messes (such as melted chocolate chips or candy)
- a place to be messy
- paper towels for clean up
It was messy! While the photos below show us doing this activity in the kitchen, I highly recommend you take it outside instead!
How We Made Our Chocolate Paintings
After we read I'm a Hungry Dinosaur, we grabbed markers and drew our own pictures. I drew a picture of a girl eating a cake. (I told my daughter I had drawn her.) My preschooler made a more abstract marker drawing (as is often the case with preschool art).
The fun part came when we brought out the chocolate!
By pressing the cocoa on the paper, it left a shadow. When we put the wet chocolate on the page, it made a much darker impression.
The best part was licking fingers at the end!
Extension Activities for I'm a Hungry Dinosaur
Additional extension activities for this book include some of the following.
- Bake our own cake. Help the kids measure and follow directions.
- Practice fractions with a cake. Is half the cake more or less than a third of the cake?
- Discuss sequencing when it comes to baking a cake. Why couldn’t the dinosaur frost the cake before baking it? Using images of the various stages of preparing the food, put the dino’s process in order again.
- Make a few related pictures to put together your own story in the same style as I'm a Hungry Dinosaur.
What a fun way to remember a clever picture book. You'll want to remember that there is actually chocolate on the page, so you won't want to keep it and display it as you would some preschool paintings. You don't want to attract critters to your home. Be ready to take pictures instead!
