Paper Plate Fish Craft

We have a wonderful paper plate fish craft in all the colors of the rainbow to share with you today. Well almost all colors.

This is such a fun craft to make as the paper circles used look almost like real fish scales… In a cartoony way.

*This post contains affiliate links*

I was a huge fan of Rainbow fish and while we didn’t really plan to make this one so rainbowy (it would totally have sparkly scales if we would, hint hint) but still think this one would work great as a craft to go along that book.

We already shared a paper plate fish craft in the past (and some other fish craft ideas), but it wasn’t nearly as colorful as this one… In fact it was quite dull looking so we though it was about time to give this project a new look.

This particular craft requires lots of paper punching, which little ones (especially preschoolers and kids in kindergarten) are usually super excited about.

You can regulate the difficulty of this craft to meet the skill level of kids that will be making it – the younger the kids the bigger the paper punch needs to be. Older kids won’t have issues working with smaller circles and end result will be even cooler.

Ready to give this rainbow fish a go?

What you need:

large paper plate
blue paint
scissors
colorful paper (print paper works nicely)
circle paper punch
glue
black maker
white paper
blue construction paper

We have both video tutorial for you to watch

And Step by Step Instructions You can Follow

Color the paper plate blue (or any other color you wish) and allow the paint to dry completely.

Cut a small triangle (piece of the pie) out of the paper plate. This will make the fish mouth (and the extra bit will be used for the tail).

Glue the triangle on the paper plate.

You can also do this at the end. No particular order is necessary.

Punch a circle out of white paper. Draw a circle inside that circle with a black marker. Look you just made an eye.

Glue the eye on the paper plate above the mouth.

Now take all of your colorful papers (the more colors the merrier) and start punching.

If a sparkly paper finds it’s way to your pile of papers to be punched that’s even better.

Punch, punch, punch. You’ll need quite a lot of paper circles.

Fold all of the circles in half. Press down nicely so they are more closed than not.

Start gluing them in rows on the paper plate fish.

We started by the head and worked our way to the tail.

Cut fins out of blue construction paper (or any other paper).

Glue them on the paper plate fish.

You’ve got yourself a nicely looking rainbow fish paper plate craft.

Want instant access to all of our printable crafts, activities, and resources?

With thousands of crafts, activities, worksheets, coloring pages, and drawing tutorials to print, you will always have just the resource you need at your disposal. Perfect for parents and teachers alike!