Paper Plate Seashell Craft

Have any extra paper plates lying around? Celebrate the ocean with this colorful paper plate seashell craft! Learning about ocean life has never been so fun!

Jump to:

• 👍 Why We Love Paper Plate Seashells
• ✂️ Supplies 
• 📝 Instructions
• 🧶 Other Paper Plate Crafts
• 🐚 Paper Plate Seashell Craft

👍 Why We Love Paper Plate Seashells

Minimal supplies! You will likely have these supplies, like paper plates, lying around your house already. And if you love paper plate crafts, be sure to also check out our Paper Plate Watermelon, Paper Plate Pizza and Paper Plate Sunflower crafts.

Fine motor skills. Our paper plate seashell craft allows kids to put developing cutting, folding, painting, and gluing skills to good use.  

Learn about scallops! We were inspired to make our paper plat seashell crafts when we cooked scallops this week for dinner. We were all pretty surprised to see how many eyes scallops have (they can have hundreds!). And none of us realized that, unlike mussels and oysters, scallops actually swim! Scallops swim by quickly opening and closing their shells to propel themselves forward.

Notes on Supplies:

Paper plate- white is ideal

Scissors- we love these kid-friendly scissors

Paint- For extra sparkle, we loved using Crayola’s Washable Glitter Paint

Brushes- We find these foam paint brushes to work really well with little hands

📝 Instructions

Step 1: Fold a paper plate in half. *Using scissors, narrow the edges of the folded plate to form the shape of a shell. Grownups can also draw an outline and ask kids to cut along the lines.

Step 2: Paint the shells. Kids can dab different colors of paint onto their shells or color the shell all one color. Encourage kids to leave the edge of the shell unpainted for the scallop's eyes. Allow the paint to dry for a few minutes.

Step 3: Draw several blue eyeballs on the outer edges of the shell. 

Step 4: Glue a cotton ball to the bottom, inside of the shell. This will represent the scallop's flesh. Now display your paper plate seashell craft!

Note: *For toddlers especially, these tasks may require adult supervision and/or assistance.

🧶 Other Paper Plate Crafts

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