Foam Ball Fishies

Foam ball fishies work up quickly, are easy to customize, and can be created by kids of all ages. Perhaps most importantly, you can’t overfeed or underfeed them!

three foam ball fish on dowels with bug eyes

Materials

a tabletop of supplies: foam balls, glue, felt, tissue paper, googly eyes, and scissors

Getting Started

We began by cutting and tearing the tissue paper into smaller pieces, about 1/2″ x 1/2″. I thinned out a couple tablespoons of white glue with a splash of water and ensured it was mixed well before giving it to the kids.

The Body

Using the brush, they painted each piece of tissue paper onto the foam ball. I had to remind them to overlap the pieces, ensuring the foam ball was completely covered in glue and had molded to the shape of the ball.

When about half of the ball was covered, the project started to get messy. I inserted a skewer and they held it by the end. For my youngest, poking the other end of the skewer into a cardboard box worked wonders! It propped up the fish and he was no longer concerned about sticky hands. (If you don’t have skewers, “paint” tissue paper on half of the ball and leave it to dry before completing the other side.)

Once the scales were all on, we let the fish dry completely. This took about 2 hours.

Fins & Tails

We made our fins and tails out of felt. We trimmed the dorsal fins, pectoral fins, and tail to fit the curve of the ball. It was simple and helped the glue hold.

We used glue to attach the fins. (I let my oldest use a hot glue gun, but the little ones used craft glue.) Applying one long line of glue on the edge of the felt tail worked better than applying glue directly to the foam ball. A dot was more than enough to secure pectoral fins.