Japanese Art, Carp, Vienna ES 10-11

This project was used in the following grades:  Kindergarten-3

Materials used:

12” x 15.5” Tyvek envelope—opened up along seam

Solo drinking cup—cut to use only the upper 1 inch

Crayola markers or crayons

Fish template (attached)

Fish face template (attached)

Glue and scissors

Stapler—1-2

Hand held hole punch

Basic description of process:

Pre-project prep:  Open up the tyvek envelopes along seam.  Cut off the bottoms of the solo cups so you only have the top 1 inch.  Do not cut through the circle as this opens up the mouth of the fish.  I farmed out these tasks to older kids needing service hours.  Make several fish shape templates.  Also see other comments section for additional optional prep work.

Trace 2 fish shapes onto each envelope.  Cut out shapes.  Glue the two pieces together on the top and bottom only, leaving the mouth and tail open.  Do not glue the sides of the mouth opening for 1 inch.  This is the part that you staple in the cup.

Have the kids color their fish.  There was a face template they could use if they wanted and we showed how to make scales with half circles.  The key here was to make sure they understood they had to repeat their design on the other side so not to get too involved in a complicated design on the first side.

Make sure they flip their fish horizontally when they are ready to color the other side or the fish will not “match” up.

Once colored, insert the solo cup into the mouth opening and fold the top inch into the cup.  Staple the cup to the envelope.  Punch two holes in opposite sides for a string.  Let glue dry completely.

This project takes a full 45 minutes and docents must watch the time to keep kids moving along  with the various steps.

Other comments:

The Japanese Koi or Carp fish represents perseverance, wisdom, love and friendship.  In Japan, families make and fly carp-shaped wind socks called koinobori.  These are flown throughout April until Tango no Sekku or Children's Day on May 5.

This project originally appeared in Family Fun Magazine. The project web address is http://familyfun.go.com/crafts/carp-wind-sock-675371/.  We modified it so it would be easier to do as a GRACE project.  The fish template is on the web site.  I free handed the face template.

We found that the younger kids had a hard time with the tracing and cutting.  So for each class, our docents traced the fish shape template onto the tyvek before the class.  For Kindergarten and first, we pre-assembled (glued) the fish so all they had to do was color.  We inserted the mouths after they had colored them.

These were displayed at our Multi-culture Night.