Make a colorful fish with your kids using just a paper plate! This an easy and fun craft project for a rainy day or summer afternoon.

This colorful paper plate fish craft is a great craft for both young children and older kids to turn into a beautiful fish.

Ahoy, all parents and teachers! If your kids love sea creatures, I have the perfect craft for you today! We’re going to make paper plate fish!

Kids of all ages love animals, whether they are land animals or sea animals. And if you want to see your kids scream with excitement and let out their inner creativity, indulging them in fun paper plate crafts is an amazing idea! Today I will teach you how to make an easy peasy lemon squeezy paper plate fish craft.

It’s an easy craft, it’s fun, and with only a few supplies, you can turn a few picnic supplies into your own colorful fish!

Want to save this project?

Enter your email below, and then we'll send it straight to your inbox. Plus get awesome new projects from us each week.

Paper Plate Crafts

I love arts and crafts, and I keep coming up with new and innovative kid crafts ideas. I’ve made plenty of popsicle stick crafts; this time, I decided to try out a fun activity using paper plates.

Being a mom of two, I have plenty of paper plates, disposable spoons, and cups available at my home. So, why not use a couple of them to create something so much fun and memorable with the kids?

The good thing about paper plates is that they are thicker than regular paper; therefore, they make for a sturdy base for any craft. Whether it's a simple craft or complex, whatever they make is sure to be a great time!

Check out these other Paper Plate Ocean Animals!

Crab Craft

Shark Craft

Jellyfish Craft

Fish Crafts For Kids

Fish crafts for kids are a great way to encourage creativity and imagination while also teaching them about marine life. These crafts can range from simple to complex and can be made using a variety of materials, from paper plates to plastic spoons and construction paper.

For older children, more complex fish crafts can be made using materials such as clay, beads, or even recycled materials like bottle caps. These crafts can help children develop their fine motor skills, as well as their problem-solving abilities as they figure out how to assemble the different pieces.

Overall, fish crafts for kids, like our How to Draw a Fish are a great way to promote creativity, imagination, and learning. Whether you're making a simple paper plate fish or a more complex recycled material fish, these crafts are sure to be a hit with children of all ages.

Don't miss our Under the Sea Coloring Page and Ocean Craft either!

Supplies for Paper Plate Fish Craft

Plain White Plates
Acrylic Paint (black & orange)
Paintbrush
Hot Glue Gun
Hot Glue Stick
White Plastic Spoons
Black Marker
Scissors

How to Make Fun Paper Plate Fish Craft?

The first step is to draw the body of the fish onto the front of the paper plate. Draw stripes on the fish. The face and then six stripes.

step 2 cut out fish shape out of paper plate

Cut out fish body.

step 3 paint paper plate fish with striped paint

Next, paint the fish. We are making a clown fish, so our stripes are orange and white with the face orange. If you're making a tropical fish or rainbow fish craft, then I recommend using all different colors for the paint colors of your stripes.

Step 5 Paint black lines in between stripes

For our clown fish, then paint a thin black line between each change of the color stripes.

step 5 cut out scoop off disposable spoons

The next step is to cut the scoop off the plastic spoons. Depending on the size of the paper plate you may need more or less than the 12 spoons we used.

step 6 hot glue spoons to painted fish along black line

Hot glue the spoons starting right off the face with rounded edges pointed towards the back of the fish.

step 7 paint over spoons with same cols from underneith

Paint over the spoons once they are dry. Continue to glue and paint till you get to the fishtail.

Next is to add the eye of the fish. We used a googly eye, and glue it to the fish's face.

Fish's Fins

step 9 draw on another paper plate three sizes of triangle trapezoids

The next step is to draw a triangle shape onto your paper plate with the base of the triangle on the outer side of the plate. Draw three different sizes. If the kids are a bit older and understand a trapezoid shape, they can draw those. The key is that one of the pieces is larger than the other two and will be the tail.

Cut the pieces out.

step 11 paint three trapezoid shapes with orange middle and black along edges

These pieces need to be painted. Paint most of the pieces orange and then a touch of black on the edges.

Step 12 glue three trapezoids to back of fish

After the paint has dried, glue each of the fins to the back of the paper plate. The larger triangle is the tail. One of the small fins is the top fin (back fin) and the other is the bottom fin.

Lastly, using a black marker or black paint, draw on the fish's mouth.

Viola, you now have a cute paper plate fish craft!

You can hang it from the ceiling to give an ocean-themed effect to your kids’ room, or you could use it as a wall hanging. You can even use bigger paper plates to make sharks, dolphins, turtles, or any other sea creature, as you now have the basic idea of how to go about this craft.

If you and your kids enjoyed making this fun fish craft, I have a number of other paper crafts ideas and popsicle sticks crafts ideas up on my website. Feel free to browse through them, print them, and grasp the ideas to make fun crafts with your kids.

We highlighted this Animal Craft along with some other fun kid's crafts in our Summer Crafts along with our 101+ Easy Kids Craft Ideas for kids.

You also do not want to miss our 101+ Printable Coloring Pages For Kids and 101+ Printables For Kids full of Crafts and Coloring Pages.

Other Ocean Crafts You'll Love

Yield: Paper Plate Fish For Kids

Paper Plate Fish

Make a colorful fish with your kids using just a paper plate! This an easy and fun craft project for a rainy day or summer afternoon.

Active Time 45 minutes

Total Time 45 minutes

Difficulty easy

Materials

2 - Plain White Plates
Acrylic Paint (black & orange)
White Plastic Spoons
Black Marker

Tools

Paintbrush
Hot Glue Gun
Hot Glue Stick
Scissors

Instructions

The first step is to draw the body of the fish onto the front of the paper plate. Draw stripes on the fish. The face and then six stripes.
Cut out fish body.
Next, paint the fish. We are making a clown fish, so our stripes are orange and white with the face orange. If you're making a tropical fish or rainbow fish craft, then I recommend using all different colors for the paint colors of your stripes.
For our clown fish, then paint a thin black line between each change of the color stripes.
The next step is to cut the scoop off the plastic spoons. Depending on the size of the paper plate you may need more or less than the 12 spoons we used.
Hot glue the spoons starting right off the face with rounded edges pointed towards the back of the fish.
Paint over the spoons once they are dry. Continue to glue and paint till you get to the fishtail.
Next is to add the eye of the fish. We used a googly eye, and glue it to the fish's face.
The next step is to draw three different size triangle shapes onto your paper plate with the base of the triangle on the outer side of the plate. If the kids are a bit older and understand a trapezoid shape, they can draw those. The key is that one of the pieces is larger than the other two and will be the tail.
Cut the pieces out.
These pieces need to be painted. Paint most of the pieces orange and then a touch of black on the edges.
After the paint has dried, glue each of the fins to the back of the paper plate.
Lastly, using a black marker or black paint, draw on the fish's mouth.