3D Paper plate rainbow fish craft

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This paper plate rainbow fish craft is inspired by the beautiful storybook “The Rainbow Fish” written by Marcus Pfister. The Rainbow fish book is based on the concept of friendship and sharing and comes with beautiful glittery pictures of the rainbow fish.

We made our blue paper plate fish with a small open mouth that gives it a 3d look. This makes it a fun craft to do with preschoolers, kindergarteners, and school-age kids. My 5-year-old absolutely enjoyed making this fish craft with me, and she made one in her favorite color, pink.

This adorable rainbow fish is a great book-themed summer craft to add to your under the sea crafts list. If you are looking for more ocean crafts, you may also want to check out our paper jellyfish craft and egg carton shark craft.

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Supplies you need to make a 3d paper plate rainbow fish craft

Three paper plates
Googly eye
Paint. (We used acrylic paint)
Scissors
Pencil
PVA Glue
Silver Glitter paper

How do you make a rainbow fish out of paper plates?

Step 1-Get two paper plates, one small and one big

To make our paper plate fish craft, we used two paper plates. One big and one small.

Get two paper plate, one small and one big to make the fish craft

Step 2-Glue them together and cut out the fins and tail

Take the smaller paper plate and apply glue inside it around the rim. We used PVA glue for this.

Now stick it inside the bigger paper plate such that the outer rims are facing each other on one edge.

Once the glue is fully dry, draw thin lines for the fins and tail on the bigger paper plate’s rim using a pencil. Drawing these lines will make it easy for kids to cut them out.

Using scissors, carefully cut out the fins and tail along the lines we just drew.

Stick the two paper plates together and draw lines for the fins and tail

Once the fins and tail are cut out, you will get the shape of a fish as below.

Cut the fins and tail to make the paper plate fish-step3

Step 3-Paint it and cut out the mouth of the 3D paper plate rainbow fish

Time to paint the paper plate. We used acrylic paint for this part. (The paper plates may turn soggy if you use watercolor.)

We used dark blue color for our fish with some purple color on the fin and tail to match the fish in our Rainbow Fish book. Kids can choose any color and try their own color combinations. If you have enough paint, you can choose to paint both sides of the paper plate fish, although not really needed.

Once the paint is fully dry, cut out a small V shape in front of the fish to make a mouth. Carefully unglue the two ends of the mouth a little bit and fold them outwards to form the lips. If you think it may tear your paper plate, you may avoid this ungluing part.

paint the paper plates and cut out the mouth-step 4

Step 4-Stick a googly eye and rainbow scales

Stick a googly eye on the paper plate fish.

Let’s give it some rainbow scales now!

Grab a third paper plate and paint inside the outer rim with your favorite rainbow colors. Once the paint dries, cut small circles or oval shapes out of the painted parts to make the scales.

Similarly, cut out some scales from silver glitter paper.

Time to stick the rainbow fish scales! We slightly bent our paper plate scales outwards before sticking them along with the glitter scales on the fish body to give it a 3d look.