An Art Project on Ocean Critters for Preschoolers

Preschoolers are fascinated by the wide variety of ocean animals.

Help preschoolers get involved in a unit about the ocean by incorporating several hands-on art projects that allow the children to decorate or create ocean animals. As they make the creatures, you can talk about the different parts of each animal, the bright colors that make up ocean critters, and the habitats where each animal lives.

Ocean Mobile

Help each child put together a mobile with pictures of several creatures that you might find living near one another in the ocean. For younger preschoolers, give them pre-cut ocean critter shapes and have them decorate each animal with crayons, markers, paint and other art supplies. For older kids, give them paper with animal outlines and have them decorate the animals and cut them out. Punch a hole in the top of each critter, tie a string to it and tie five or more critters to a coat hanger to make a mobile.

Plate Creatures

Paper plates make an easy base for many types of ocean creatures. Use paint, glue, googly eyes, staples, construction paper and crepe paper streamers to decorate plates like ocean creatures you are studying. For example, to make a crab, have kids paint the bottoms of two plates red, add red paper legs, staple the plates together with the red sides facing out and have kids make faces with googly eyes and markers. Use a similar technique for an octopus, but sponge paint the plates for camouflage and help the kids count out eight crepe paper legs.

Fish with Scales

Give preschoolers a chance to design their very own colorful fish by gluing overlapping pieces of colored paper on a fish template to look like scales. Start with a large paper cutout, at least 1 foot long, shaped like a fish. Give kids a variety of 2-inch circles of colored paper to glue all over the fish as its scales. Tissue paper gives an interesting effect with all the different colors it makes when two colors overlap and circles cut from a magazine also provide a variety of colors and prints. If you would like, have kids decorate two cutouts, put them back-to-back with cotton balls in between and staple or tape them together to make a 3-D fish.

Collaborative Class Project

If you would like to display an art project on one of the walls in the classroom, choose a collaborative project where each child can make a different critter to add to the wall. One simple idea is to cut out all the critters you want on the wall and give each child several cutouts. Let them decorate their animals however they want, with finger paint, tissue paper, googly eyes or your favorite art supplies. Another way to do the project is to have each child sponge paint a large piece of paper and then rip each paper into components and staple them onto the bulletin board in the shape of a sea creature. For example, a dolphin would be made of a large body, a tail shape, a fin and maybe a long bottleneck nose. A jellyfish would have an amoeba-like body and many long, thin pieces added to the bottom.