Summer is the best time of year, isn’t it? The heat, everything in bloom, and endless opportunities to satiate our children’s curious minds! One subject my kids can’t get enough of is the Ocean and everything in it. So we came up with this cute pop out Ocean Animal Craft to play with some of our favorite sea creatures!
The thing about summertime, is we have so much time to play and get creative with our kiddos, but it always seems so busy, doesn’t it? Just me? At any rate, in this season and season of life we’re in, I really gravitate towards the quick and easy crafts. So naturally, I present to thee a quick and easy craft for the summer. Printable template included!
When we first attempted this, we used liquid glue because it was what we had readily on hand. I do not recommend! The liquid glue really distorts the paper and you end up with very bubbly and crooked pop outs. I knew this would happen and tried anyway because it’s what we had, and it did exactly what I knew it would do! Don’t be like me
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Besides the glue sitch, this cute little craft is so simple! If your kids are old enough to use scissors themselves, they should be able to do the whole project. They may need some direction or to be shown the first time they do the fold and glue layers at step 2, but it’s easy once you get going! We really enjoyed making and playing with our pop out ocean animals!
What You’ll Need for Pop-Out Ocean Animal Craft
- Ocean animals template printable
- Construction paper in various colors
- White computer paper or card stock
- A pen/pencil for tracing
- Scissors
- Glue- preferably a glue stick
1. Prep and use the templates
The first step is to cut the circle templates out. You’ll use these to trace and cut out circles for each animal background. I suggest using at least 3 circles for each one, but 4 or 5 will provide an even better 3-D effect.
2. Fold and glue the circles together
This next part is how we make the ocean animals “pop out”. Take the circle cut outs and fold each one in half. Then use your glue to attach one side of two circles together. Keep them pushed together and attach another one to only one side of the top half circle. Repeat as many times as needed, keeping the entire bunch pressed together the whole time so you don’t lose track of which side to glue on.
3. Attach pop out to ocean animal template
Now we will take our cool pop out circle and glue it smack dab in the middle of our ocean animals templates! Keeping the pile of half circles pressed together, you’re going to put glue on the very top and very bottom pieces that are on the outside.
When you lay those two flat and bring them together, you’ll see them make a circle and make the rest of the folded circles pop out. Put the glued pieces on the template inside the empty circle so that they meet up and make a new circle.
4. Add any special touches
Now that the pop out piece is glued down, you can see which sides are more visible. For some we decided to add googly eyes. We kept it simple, but you can decorate them more if you’d like! Maybe add something that the crab is holding, or draw some details on the turtle’s shell. You can stop here if you’d like, and you have some very cute ocean animal pop outs!
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5. Cut out your ocean animals
My kids of course did not want to stop there, because crafts are for playing with and not just displaying when possible, haha! So we decided to set the sea creatures free and cut them out of the white paper. We were left with some adorable little ocean buddies to play with!
Miss 7 and Mister 5 loved this pop out ocean animal craft. Their favorites to play with were the crab and shark- of COURSE Mister 5 loved the shark though, right?? Personally, I thought the turtle was exceptionally adorable. Which is your favorite pop out ocean friend?
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