CRAFT

It's rainy in Australia but sunny in the USA but whatever the weather there's aways a need to keep grandkids entertained. Here are some great ideas all based around paper plates, which most of us keep on hand. The projects are fun and colourful and kids will delight in taking them home to show Mum and Dad.

PAPER PLATE JELLY FISH

What you'll need:

• paper plate
• tissue paper
• yarn
• googly eyes
• scissors
• glue
• hole punch
• black marker

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1. Start by cutting up the tissue paper into small squares. For young kids who aren't comfortable yet with scissors, you can suggest tearing up the tissue paper, instead.
2. Draw a wavy line at the bottom of the paper plate and cut along that line.
3. Glue the tissue paper squares onto the paper plate.
4. Use a hole punch to make several holes along the wavy bottom line of the paper plate.
5. Cut yarn strands of the same length. Thread the yarn through the holes at the bottom of the paper plate and tie them up.
6. Glue the googly eyes onto the paper plate and use a black marker to draw a mouth. For more fun you can use big googly eyes, or glow in the dark googly eyes.

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PAPER PLATE PUFFER FISH

What you’ll need

• White paper plate
• Tempera paint 
• Paintbrushes
• Cotton swabs (Q-tips)
• Scissors
• Glue
• Scraps of construction paper
• Marker or crayons

 
What to do

1. Start by painting your paper plate with tempera paint. This will be the body of the fish. You can use just one coloUr or paint the body a variety of coloUrs.
2. When looking at images of pufferfish online, we noticed some were spotted. We used cotton swabs to dot paint details onto our painted plates.
3. Use scissors to cut slits all around the edge of your paper plate. We cut our slits from the edge of the plate to the inner circle ridge.
4. Use your scissors to cut off every other resulting tab along the edge of the plate so you have spaces between each spine.
5. Cut out two fins from your construction paper and glue them to your pufferfish.
6. Cut out two eyes and glue them onto your pufferfish face. Draw a mouth for your fish​

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PAPER PLATE TROPICAL FISH

What you’ll need:

• Paper plates
• Bright poster paints
• Googly eyes
• Scissors

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Directions:

1. Draw the fins and mouths onto paper plates. You'll need a tail, three fins and a mouth piece for each fish. Just follow the shapes in the pictures.
2. Next paint the pieces before cutting them out as well as painting full plates for the bodies. 
3. When everything is dry, glue the fins, tails and mouths to the painted paper plates.
4. After you assemble the tropical paper plate fish you can decorate with stripes, polka dots, googly eyes, and anything else you like!