My little guy went to his first day of his Mom's Morning Out program on Friday. When he got home I asked what they did for a project. He said he didn't make a project (because he was too busy running around)... but that some of the other kids made fishes. We headed off to play Legos and on the way he said, "I want to make a fish project." He told me his teacher at class used paper plates to make the fish... so we googled "paper plate fish craft" and he yelled in amazement, "they looked like all of those!" Yay for Google! (otherwise he would've been SO frustrated because I wouldn'tve made the fish the right way)
So we grabbed our paint, cut out a mouth from our paper plate (to turn into a tail), and started creating!
Since my little guy likes to actually paint the entire surface now, he gets more tired when he is painting... so he only finished the project halfway. I left it out all day just in case he decided to do any more... and he did, once his evening babysitter arrived. I think I can tell which parts she helped with (the tail, maybe? :))
If you can't tell, the babysitter stapled the tail to the big paper plate. So easy peasy!
The only thing I might've added was an eye, but I love this simple fish project.
Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister would be a perfect book to go along with this project. I love the shiny images in the book and the message about friendship... although I never knew there was such a debate about the book until the last year or so. Crazy! I think the book is sweet.
Do you have any other favorite fishy children's books? How else have you made paper plate fish before?
Hey Kristina! I'm Livia and I'm a teacher in Brazil.
I loved this idea!!!! I'm gonna try it in class tomorrow and I bet my little ones are gonna LOVE it!
Tks for sharing! 🙂
@Robyn- Thanks for the book suggestion!!! I have not read that one yet. You definitely need some do-a-dot markers. They are the best things ever!
I have some BIG TIME 'all things fish' obsessed children in my house. We are definately going to make these fish some time soon… and I don't know why we don't have any of those great polka dot painting tools in our art cupboard (maybe we'll have to get some for christmas)
a great fish book I just came across
"Trout, Trout, Trout" by April Pulley Sayre
the illustrations are fantastic.