Japanese Paper Fish Crafts

Make fun Japanese paper fish crafts with the kids.Goldfish Lanterns image by Toronto Canada from Fotolia.com

Use Japanese paper fish crafts to teach children about different cultures. These crafts are all very simple and require very few materials. You can make them in an hour or two, and they can be used to decorate a child's room, as party decorations, or in a classroom. All you need are a few simple supplies like colorful paper, scissors, glue, markers and colored pencils.

Japanese Hanging Koi

Make a Japanese koi (goldfish) from old magazines, colored foil, and paper. Hang it from the ceiling in a child’s room or in the classroom. You will need a few basic items like markers, crayons, glue, scissors, stapler, a hole puncher and tissue paper to make streamers. Draw the koi on a large piece of paper. Place another piece of paper of the same size under your drawing, and cut two paper fish by following the outline with your scissors. Cut out circles from colorful paper, magazines or aluminum foil. Embellish the circles with glitter markers, sequins, or any type of shiny decoration. Glue the circles to both fish sides to look like scales. Staple the fish together with the circles facing outward. Staple the tissue paper streamers to the inside of the fish tail. Punch two holes at equal distances from each other in the face, and string a piece of yarn through each hole. Tie a knot at the hole to make a hanger, and hang it from the ceiling or a wall.

Make a Japanese paper fan. Locate koi or goldfish outline drawings. Cut out a Japanese paper fan (see Resources) from construction paper, regular printing paper, or poster board. Draw your koi in a serene landscape setting. You can print koi graphics from your computer and then cut them to the Japanese paper fan shape if you don’t feel comfortable with your drawing skills. Use a black marker to emphasize your drawing lines, and use colored markers, pencils or water colors to color the koi and surrounding areas. Leave some areas without color for an interesting effect and the background. When you finish, turn your fan over, and glue the top of a Popsicle stick to the back at the bottom of the fan. This will be your fan handle. Glue two more Popsicle sticks to the back of the fan in a V shape. The top of the V should be on the top edge of the fan. Glue the bottom ends of the V to the top of the first Popsicle stick, making a Y shape out of all three Popsicle sticks. This will give your fan strength so that the top edges don’t flip over when you use the fan.

Cut a square piece of paper, and fold it diagonally. However, the diagonal fold should not meet at the corner, but be just slightly off the corner, showing both the underside corner and the top corner of the paper of the created triangle. Fold the triangle in half but again, just off-center, perpendicular to the first fold. Turn the paper over, and notice the angel fish appearance. Glue googly eyes on, or draw the eyes and mouth on the fish. You can tape a blue piece of poster board on the wall and tape or glue lots of little angel fish to the poster, making a wall aquarium.