M, M and I spent an entire morning working on a homemade ocean aquarium. (I love an activity that inspires that amount of focus!). I was inspired by this simple interactive aquarium from Made by Joel.
what you need: cardboard box ~ box cutter ~ thread ~ washers ~ paint ~ markers ~ paper ~ ocean books
I cut holes in the side and the top to let light come in from the sides. I made a few slits for the sea life to hang. ** I was hoping that the fish would slide back and forth, but they don’t slide very well. I still love the slits because the kids are able to take the fish out and move them around easily.**
We sat down and looked through a couple of our ocean books. We talked about the colors that represented water. Little M choose green for the background.
I propped up a book (after M and M agreed on a page of course). They both chose different Rays to create and spent quite a bit of time working on them.
I was very excited to introduce a new technique to Big M. When he finished the blue of his Eagle Ray, I suggested he wait for the paint to dry before adding white spots.
Deciding how to hang the sea life was a challenge.
I tried a bent paper clip…it didn’t work at all!
I tried a button…that was better.
The washer was perfect! I love that I could tie the thread it two places so that our pieces hang nicely.
We added shells. I hot glued some, and Big M suggested we leave some that could be moved and rearranged. Such a great idea!
What all day projects have you been working on?
This post is a part of our OCEAN week.
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This project came out great!
Thank you!
Nice idea! I wonder if my daughter would be up for slowly building her aquarium, but we need to postpone it until we are back from vacation.
It would be a great activity to do over time. Each step was really its own project. Have a nice vacation=)
Washers come in so handy, your aquarium looks fantastic. Have you read Sharing a Shell by Julia Donaldson yet?
No I have not! I will check it out next time I’m at the library. Thank you!
I have done this in a preschool and prek class for years. I used shoe boxes to do this, the kids loved it, the whole project took 1 week to finish with over 20 kids.
I bet they really ended the project with a sense of accomplishment! Very cool.