My daughter’s new favorite book is The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister. She really enjoys the sparkly fish scales throughout the book, and I really like the meaning behind the story, it’s a win-win! It’s a great book about the importance of sharing and how great it makes you feel! This was a great lesson for our oldest daugther since she now has a younger sister. She loves to share so far! Hopefully it stays that way!
We wanted to do a fun, sparkly craft to mimic the fish in the story! This is an easy watercolor paint craft kids of all ages can complete! Linked below is the FREE printable and directions for making the “Rainbow” fish!
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Materials needed:
- Neon food coloring or liquid watercolor paint
- Black glitter glue
- Elmer’s School Glue
- Silver glitter
- Wiggle eye
- Paint brush
- Cardstock paper
- Free printable – link below
Start by tracing the black outlines with the black glitter glue. Allow to dry completely before proceeding. I used a blow dryer which sped up the drying process. You could also complete this step the day before and let dry overnight (time will vary depending on weather conditions). But I think the blow dryer worked great!
Craft table ready to use! I used these silicone muffin cups for the food coloring mixture. Place 5 drops of dye in each cup and fill half way with water. You can add more or less drops depending on how dark you want the colors! We only used the pink, blue and purple dye.
Dip the paintbrush into the colors and spread onto the fish staying within the black lines. There’s no right or wrong way to do this. Each fish will turn out different and that’s the fun part! It also doesn’t matter if paint drips outside of the fish, we’re going to cut it out.
Place fish into a cookie sheet or a container with sides (this will prevent glitter from going all over the floor). Paint glue on random scales and paint a few squiggles of glue on the fins.
Sprinkle glitter on top, then gently tilt paper and shake excess glitter into tray.
Glue wiggle eye onto fish and cut out with scissors. Cutting the fish out is optional, but it came to life more once it was off the paper.
My daughter really enjoyed seeing the finished product! She ran around the house making it “swim.” She also recognized it was the same fish from the book!
This would be a great activity for kids to complete at a mermaid themed birthday party! You could have the template outlined with the glue ahead of time and have the paint colors set up for kids to make their own! I also really like the story behind the fish as well. I hope your little ones enjoy making their own Rainbow fish!
