A Pod of Dolphin Puppets & Paper Plate Oceans ~ a Preschool Craft!
We have done soooo many dolphin activities this week--I will be posting them during the next few days!! Today's dolphin themed craft is actually a dolphin puppet with a paper plate ocean! It is simple enough that my toddler joined in to make one, but so full of room for creativity and individual experimentation that my 10-year old could not help joining in the fun!
My own 4-year old loves to make things all on her own so much that most of our projects are very much kid-made. So while it may not look like a pinterest project, it has a part of our preschoolers in it, and they love it!
The idea behind these dolphin puppets is that the kids make their own dolphin puppets AND an ocean world for them to live in!
It's a simple project, and has three basic steps:
1- Make the dolphin.
2- Paint the ocean.
3- Gather or make accessories (like seaweed, shells, etc.).
We'll take a quick look at each step!
Make your own dolphin puppets and paper plate ocean:
1- Make the dolphin.
This is super easy! Just print out the dolphin template, cut out a dolphin for each kiddo, and let them paint it! We used paint dot markers (provided to us by Craft Project Supply for any projects we chose) for the dolphins. My oldest added some white paint and glitter to her dolphin.
By the way, I love the fine motor exercise they get from painting AND twisting on the lids when they're done!
2- Paint the Ocean!
I pulled out blue, green, and white paints, and let the kids squirt whatever paints they wanted onto their paper plates. Then we used sponge brushes to paint the ocean! I had a couple kids paint fish on at this point too (their idea, not mine, though it turned out wonderfully)!
3- Gather and/or Paint Accessories!
I pulled out little shells for the kids to paint and glue on to their masterpieces. They had a few other ideas...one child pulled out pony beads, another glitter, and another fabric to make a theater for her puppet! We painted the shells with the dot paints and normal acrylic paints, and glued them on with hot glue.
When the ocean was dry, we used an exacto knife to cut the slit for the dolphin puppet's stick to go through!
When they were done, everyone had sooo much fun playing with their dolphins and ocean worlds!
Did you know that a group of dolphins is called a pod? Most pods have about 12 dolphins in them. Every once in a while a bunch of dolphin pods will join together to make a superpod with up to 100 dolphins swimming together! These superpods don't last too long, but the dolphins in each smaller pod will stay together for a long time!
We are sharing this dolphin pod project as part of the Creative Collective Nouns series! A group of bloggers is sharing different crafts you can do to celebrate the fun names collective nouns have (like a "pod" of dolphins)! Here are two more fun activities in the series:
Make a Colony of Ants at the ZingZing Tree
Make a Cute Caterpillar Craft at Thimble and Twig
And if you're looking for more Ocean Themed Preschool Activities, check out my collection! There are arts/crafts, science, math, and more:
Happy Educating,
Carla
I may share at any of these parties!
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