Craft Story Club: Fish Suncatchers with CDs

This week in Craft Story Club, we made fish suncatchers with old cds.  Luckily for us, the librarian in charge of the adult collection recently weeded in the Audiobook section - which gave Craft Story Club a boon of no  longer usable cds.

I found a great tutorial on the Oklahoma Health Care Authority's website.  They call it CD Fish activity page and you can download it here.

To start Craft Story Club, we always read books about what we're going to build.  Today, we read:


The Three Little Fish and the Big Bad Shark by Ken Geist
    This book is always a hit.  The kids love the different take on the three little pigs and I did ask them if this story was reminding them of anything - a few of them called out, "The Three Little Pigs!"  One girl yelled out, "The three little pigs and the big bad shark!"  We all had a great time talking about sharks versus wolves and saying one thing but meaning another.



Gilbert Goldfish Wants a Pet by Kelly DiPucchio
    Another hit.  The children loved the idea of a pet wanting a pet.  The end was a little scary for a few of them until the big reveal and then not only were they relieved, but they were also laughing.  (I don't want to ruin the ending for those of you who haven't read it.)  This always goes well in any storytime.

And we finished our reading portion with:

The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister
    Oh, how I do not like this book.  I really don't.  But it does so well in storytime, so I read it.  And I read it with as much enthusiasm as the ones I love...so the kids never know I can't stand it.  What I can't stand is that in order for the other fish to like him, he has to give away everything that makes him unique.  But I did it because it ties so well into the craft - we were going to make fish that sparkled like the Rainbow Fish.  This book was another hit, and by this time, the kids were so wound up and ready to craft.

Before Craft Story Club, I had some of my Summer Reading Volunteers cut out and trace the different pattern pieces from the tutorial onto different construction paper.  (I use the fadeless construction paper, it's a little more expensive, but also a lot better quality and the colors won't go away as quickly.)

I set up the room with 2 cds and a length of yarn at each chair, and scissors, pattern pieces, glue and wiggly eyes on every table.  We started by cutting out our pattern pieces and gluing them to the printed side of one cd.  Then we glued our string on the top fin and glued another top fin on it.

The only problem with this craft is not everyone was proficient with the scissors, so we had some frustration.  Once we got to the glue, everyone was having a good time again.

I had the idea to draw on the CDs with normal Prang markers.  Unfortunately, this didn't really work and ended up getting marker ink mostly on the kids.  This is one craft where you actually need to use Sharpies.

Since the markers weren't working well, I pulled out some feathers, and some of the kids glued feathers onto their CD fish - they really loved this.  One girl was putting glue on the CD and dropping the feathers onto the glue.

Here are some of our finished projects:

This was definitely one I'd do again.