Recycled Reef Fish

Upcycling old plastic bottles and containers into a recycled reef is a fun way for students to learn about cleaning up the oceans and protecting the earth.  Have students bring in lots of plastic bottles and encourage different shapes and thicknesses of plastic. Rinse out the insides and peel off labels first.  Then from your collection of bottles have students choose one that they will use for the body of their fish.  The water bottle in this photo works well for a small shark, but a large laundry soap bottle might work better for a puffer fish.  Have students plan out where eyes, mouths, fins and tails might go on their bottle.

Next students used flat plastic pieces to cut out their fish parts.  Scissors will work well for most of the work but you may want to have a few utility knives or x-acto knives on hand for adult use too.  As they worked on the details, I worked with each student to attach on the fins and tails.  Make a slice with a utility knife into the body of the fish and slide in the fin, they will stay pretty well if the cut isn't to large, but I also reinforced the attachment with a little hot glue.  Next, I let students choose what color they wanted their fish and I spray painted each bottle completely.  Once the main spray painted color dried, I gave students a plethora of different colored sharpie markers  to color in different parts of the fish, making scales, faces, details etc. HINT: Most plastics don't take paint well, but if you want to avoid the spray painting aspect of this project:  build your fish as described and then cover them in a layer of paper mache and then let students use acrylic paints to decorate their fish.

To display our reef, I hole punched a hole in the top fin of each of our fish and attached a string to hang them.  If you set them up at different levels they will look like they are swimming!

!!! B CR8IV!!!

Octopus Gardens

These mini coral reefs are easy to build and filled with interesting texture.  Start by building the reef base out of a pinch pot.  So make a sphere of clay, push your thumb into it and squeeze around the sides to make a bowl shape.  Then flip it over, you can dent it in or push it out in areas or even push a hole through the side so you have a cave in your reef.  Next break off small pieces of clay and roll out 8 cone shapes for your octopus' legs.  Scratch the wide end of each of the legs and scratch the top of your reef and attach each of the legs on, its a good idea to put on hand underneath the reef as you push the legs on so that you don't collapse the reef in.  Take your time blending the legs together and shaping them.  Next roll a small sphere for the head of your octopus, scratch-to-attach it on top of where you attached the legs and blend it in with your finger or a tool.  You can add eyes or a face onto your octopus if you'd like too. 

Next we'll start building the coral and reef creatures to add on.  I encourage students to add on at least five different elements and to cover the entire surface with texture.  I also give students lots of images of coral reefs to inspire ideas.  Besides interestingly shaped and textured corals and seaweeds, students like to add on crabs or eels, sometimes a baby octopus or little fish.  Make sure that all the elements you build are scratched-to-attached on to the reef well.  You can also move the octopus' arms to wrap around the items that you add on.  Encourage students to continue to turn their sculptures around and view them from all sides, making sure that they have interesting elements from every point of view.  Once glazed, these sculptures are safe to put into a fish tank as handmade decoration if you'd like! 

!!!B CR8IV!!!