Preschool Craft – Making a 3D Fish Scene with Paper Plates

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My kids are always wanting to cut, paint, glue, or just scribble on a piece of paper. Crafts are always a favorite activity and I often try to come up with different activities based on what they find appealing at the moment. Most recently it has been fish. We decided over the weekend to make our own little 3D fish scene using paper plates.

Paper Plate Craft 3D Fish Scene

Supplies Needed:

  • 2 Paper Plates
  • Scissors
  • Paints
  • Paint Brushes (or fingers work well too)
  • Glue
  • Green Pipe Cleaners
  • White paper or foam sheet or small pom-poms
  • Googly eyes

Painting the Parts to the Fish Tank

I had heavy-duty Chinet oval plates on hand, but circle regular ones work fine too. Cut the middle, flat area out of one plate. I used the cutout to make our fish. It worked out perfectly, allowing each of my sons to have their own piece to paint.

Use 2 Paper Plates to make a 3D Fish Scene #PreschoolCraft

Paint the inside of the whole plate blue for the water (the edge will be clued to the other one, so it doesn’t have to be painted); the back of the cut one any color for the frame; and the cutout piece colors for the fish (we used red and yellow).

Make the Fish Pop-Out with Zig Zag Folded Paper

Cut out a few fish shapes. To make the fish pop out, cut a thin strip of construction paper and fold it to make a zigzag. I found the best size for each piece for our fish was with three folds. Attach with glue.

After that, we had to add googly eyes to the fish, because everything is better with googly eyes.

Adding Seaweed to the 3D Fish Tank Craft

For added decoration, fold a few green pipe-cleaners in half and quarters creating seaweed.

3D Fish Tank Craft

If you’d like to add bubbles, small pom-poms would work great. I didn’t have enough for all the fish, so I cut small circles out of a foam sheet.

3D Fish Tank Craft using Paper Plates

Attach the top plates by applying a strip of glue around the flat outer part of the background plate. Place the flat part of the frame plate on top, holding for a moment to bond together. After it’s dry, add it to your art wall or let your kids give their fish tank to someone as a gift.

Make a 3D Fish Scene with 2 Paper Plates #preschoolcrafts
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If you are looking for other paper plate crafts, check out our Paper Plate Handprint Sun.

*NEW* OUR FINDING DORY OCEAN SCENE HERE:

FINDING DORY Ocean Scene Kids Activity with Printable Cutouts

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