Last week my son was in a super cool day camp and I took some time to have good one on one time with my daughter. We have a ton of jellyfish ( or sea jellies ) around where we live, and we can see them floating in the water and all over the beaches. After a trip to the beach, we decided to make this simple paper bag jellyfish craft. We ended up making a whole family of paper bag jellyfish, the color-mixing exploration was not planned but very much an added bonus.
How To Make A Paper Bag Jellyfish Craft
- Gather your materials. You will need one paper bag per jelly fish, some googly eyes, glue, paint brushes, a mix of paint colors, glitter glue, and scissors ( pinking sheers are a plus! )
- Start by painting your paper bags. My daughter jumped in and started making pink, but her exploration of color mixing led to green and blackish brown. This is one reason why I try ( although fail miserably sometimes) to only do a project when I have a good block of time. I didn’t intend for her to make a whole family or to spend as much time color mixing as she did, but both were awesome and having extra time allowed me to sit back and enjoy the ride.
- She painted the first pink and then made a Bubba ( her pet name for her brother) with blue and yellow which of course resulted in green , and a daddy one with the jumble of colors that ended up a deep purplish dark brown.
- She ended with herself a pretty pink. We are very very very much in a pink stage. All her clothes that are not pink haven’t been touched in weeks. Do you know how many cute clothes she has that are blue? That’s a story for another day. Back to the craft…
- Next add glitter. Everything, even jellyfish are better with glitter. We used glitter glue which is only a fraction as messy as loose glitter.
- Let dry – we had lunch, picked up her brother and played school while we waited for them to dry.
- Cut. I cut the bags with pinking sheers and did it roughly so there would be some movement. Older kids might love this, my daughter likes cutting but was unsure about cutting painted paper.
- Add glue. Like the new but also pink dress ?
- Add the googly eyes and let dry again.
Books About Ocean Animals for Preschool
Commotion in the Ocean by Giles Andreae is a happy book full of rhymes about all sorts of sea creatures, including jelly fish. Each page has rhyming text that goes along with the animal. The book is cute and the illustrations are bright and bold. My son enjoyed it pointing out the animals. That said it’s not a must buy, more like a great to have on hand when you are specifically learning about the subject.
Hooray for Fish! by Lucy Cousins gets are huge “Hooray” from our house. I thought my son would think this book was a little young for him. He’s started saying board books are for babies, and he’s a big boy and even though this isn’t a board book it’s simple, big, and bright like one. Nope, he loved it. Little Fish takes the readers on a tour of all the different kinds of fish, the bright fun illustrations are so interesting to look at and choose your favorite fish on each page. The rhymes are fun and when we finished reading my son immediately asked to read it again! Edited for 2011 – now that he is almost 5 he flatly refused to read this with me but his sister who is 14 months liked it!
Way Down Deep in the Deep Blue Sea by Jan Peck is about a little boy swimming in the “deep” looking for treasure. Along the way he encounters different sea animals. The cute kicker is that all along the little boy is really in his bath tub and the animals are just toys. I liked the twist and so did my son who then requested a laundry basket to play bath, funny how he didn’t actually want a bath…a mom can dream! Edited for 2011 – My son rediscovered this book as we were setting up the playroom in our new house. It’s still a hit with him after 2 years.
Kelly says
This is such a cute craft. I love using your site as a resource because you use normal, everyday items to make something fun. I’m adding this cute little guy to our list!
Allison McDonald says
Kelly- that is such a compliment thank you, I try to make everything accessible. It’s nice to see it’s noticed.
Gude @HodgePodgeCraft says
The googly eyes really bring these to life!
GREAT dresses (I really must up my game and include an outfit change mid-craft activity) – do those come in Hodge Podge size, do you think..? 😉
Blayne says
I love these jellyfish! They are adorable! Way Down Deep in the Deep Blue Sea and Commotion in the Ocean are two of my favorite ocean books! 🙂
Carol says
I like this idea. Very neat and the kids will love it!
Jenny A. says
I really love your site. I’m not crafty but all your projects are doable for me. Thanks for realizing we are aren’t mini Martha Stewarts.
Debbie says
I love this jellyfish! It’s adorable AND a craft that a preschooler can actually do. I wanted to let you know I’ve shared a link to this on my site.
Allison McDonald says
Thanks!
Cindy deRosier says
I’m the Editorial Assistant for Fun Family Crafts and I wanted to let you know that we have featured your jellyfish project! You can see it here:
http://funfamilycrafts.com/paper-bag-jellyfish/
If you have other kid-friendly crafts, we’d love it if you would submit them. Thanks for a fun project idea!