Fish Foil Puppets
Many different kinds of fish live in rivers throughout our country, including a wide variety of trout, salmon, American shad, bluegill, yellow perch and bass. Use your creativity to make your foil fish into any kind of fish you like — real or imagined!
What You'll Need:
- 2 fish templates (download below)
- Scissors
- Craft glue
- 4mm-thick twine or yarn
- Aluminum foil
- Tape
- Jumbo craft sticks
- Paintbrushes
- Acrylic paint
- Dishwashing soap
What You'll Do:
- Kids: Print and cut out two of the same fish templates.
- Kids: Lay one fish right-side up on work surface. Glue on pieces of twine or yarn to make a design, cutting pieces to the right sizes as you go.
- Kids: Glue thick piece of twine or yarn to make a circle eye. Allow glue to dry. Repeat steps 2 and 3 with second fish.
- Adults: Tear 2 sheets aluminum foil large enough to cover each fish and wrap around, folding excess around edges.
- Kids: Working carefully to avoid tearing foil, gently press it down over and around each fish so twine designs are clearly visible through the foil.
- Kids: Tape craft stick to back of one foil-covered fish.
- Adults: Squirt different colors paint into containers. Add generous squirt of dishwashing soap to each and mix thoroughly to combine. The addition of soap will help paint adhere better to foil, although it may still flake off a bit once dry.
- Kids: With paintbrush, paint foiled sides of fish, using the raised designs as borders between different colors if you like. Allow fish to dry.
- Kids: Once paint is dry, glue two fish together with back sides facing each other. Allow to dry, then take the shiny fish puppet on an upstream adventure!
Fish Adventures
Many river fish swim thousands of miles over their lifetimes, with several species living part of their lives in freshwater and part of their lives in the ocean. In order to spawn, or have babies, they swim all the way back to where they were born — which means swimming upstream. Have you ever been in a boat on a river? If you have ever helped paddle, you know the current helps propel the boat forward through the water. Now think about turning the boat around and paddling against the current — that’s what fish like steelhead trout and coho salmon do!