Stuffed Fish!

This art project was based on a concept from Preschool Art by MaryAnn Kohl (linked to BN for YOU - Rachel!) and was wildly successful with my little ones.

Stuffed Fish

Tools
Roll of butcher paper or other large paper
Pencil
Scissors
Crayons (or paints, or whatever you have on hand!)
Stapler
Newspaper
Googly eyes

How To:

Step 1:
Pre-draw and cut a large fish on oversized paper. I used a roll of butcher paper, and used a clip art fish to base my freehand drawing off of. You'll need two fish per child.

Step 2:
Have each child color one side of each fish (be sure they are coloring two sides that will line up correctly when you go to assemble the fish. Perhaps label the sides they are supposed to color.

Encourage them to make bright and colorful fish and cover all the white space.

If children are old enough, talk about patterns and shapes. Maybe they want to create a striped or polka dotted fish? They can be whimsical - not realistic.



Step 3:
Staple the two sides of the fish together, stuffing with crumpled up newspaper as you go.

Step 4:
Add a googly eye on each side of your fish, and you're done!



I used crayons for this lesson because I had a large class of kids for a short time period and wanted to a) keep mess under control and b) avoid anything needing to dry. I think these fish would look fantastic with acrylic or glitter paints.

We attached our fish to ribbons and hung them in a hallway in our building. I even had my interns fashion some "seaweed" out of curling ribbon. They're so crafty!

What fun for the kids to walk through their "aquarium" and see their fish swimming around!