Puffy Fish Craft

We're featuring a great craft kit over on ABC & 123 this week, and I love the aquarium Katie's kids made. That's the one I'd have picked also, because I just love an end of the year ocean theme! So in honor of this week's sponsor and because this week's Picnic Table Talk is to share some arts and craft fun, I let ER crack out the paints.

We do all sorts of crafts, and use all kinds of supplies but paints are by far her favorite art medium. She just loves it and that means we do a lot of experience based art, which is fine by me, but I often I like to try and turn it into something recognizable when we're done.

This project started with reading Rainbow Fish, always a good read. We stress the sharing part of the lesson, one my kiddo needs reinforced at every possible point! Then we made our own Rainbow Fish.

I let her pick what color of paper she wanted to use and then she painted with every color in our set all over each sheet. I was going to add sparkles, but for once, she didn't want any. I think it's because she didn't want me messing with her masterpiece. She's very much in the I do it all by myself phase.

After that dried, I cut out two fish shapes. We stacked them up, wrong sides together and then stapled them together. We left a little opening on one side and stuffed our fish with newspaper. Then I stapled Rainbow Fish closed. Voila, a bright and colorful puffy fish!

{Am I a terrible mother for thinking this particular project is oh um...well, not the cutest? I'd have put an eye on it, but little Missy freaked when I tried. I also thought about adding a fin, well the stubborn thing took her fish off the table and took it upstairs to hide it from me! She let me know in no uncertain terms she was done with her fish, and apparently that meant I was too! Is three the I've got an opinion stage? If so, I am not liking it!}I used to make a school of fish like these, punch a hole at the top, and hang them from the ceiling of my classroom. If you stagger the lengths of fishing wire and also hang some pieces of green crepe paper you get a very neat looking water scene. The kids love it.

I'm excited to see all the other great crafty ideas from our other Picnic Table Talk participants, head over to get some inspiration from our wonderful community at ABC & 123: A Learning Cooperative!