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You are here: Home / Themes / Ocean / Egg Carton Sea Life Recycled Craft

Egg Carton Sea Life Recycled Craft

By Shaunna Evans 24 Comments · This content may contain affiliate links.

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The theme this week for Discover & Explore is Sea Life. We made a recycled egg carton coral reef play set. Read below for the simple how-to. Then we’d love for you to share your favorite activities, crafts, tips, and resources about ocean creatures at the end of this post.

See the world through a child's eyes

Get a full week of ocean theme lesson plans for 

Home Preschool or your Preschool Classroom.

My oldest is fascinated by ocean animals. She has been since she was an infant. This summer she’s sure that we need to have a pet orca, and she’s eagerly awaiting Big Buddy’s return from vacation…he’s bringing her a sea turtle after all. 😉

Since I can’t quite make that a reality for her, I thought this recycled egg carton craft would be a fun way to do some crafting and encourage pretend play.

This post contains affiliate links for your convenience.

Egg Carton Sea Life

I originally saw the idea for egg carton sea creatures in Parents Magazine. I started by cutting apart a couple egg cartons. I tried my best to cut a few pieces and tape them together to look like fish. They work for our purposes, but I’m sure some of you could come up with some very crafty looking sea creatures.  Either way both of the girls loved finding this invitation to create waiting for them one morning.

Sea Animals Craft

The type of paint you need will depend on the type of egg cartons you have. Washable tempera paint worked well for the cardboard cartons, but we had to use acrylics for the styrofoam cartons. Lovey enjoyed painting the smaller pieces, and Tinker spent her time painting the bottom of the larger carton (pictured below) to make the base of our coral reef.

Once the pieces were dry we added googly eyes, chenille stems, and some basic facial features.  The girls could barely wait to get started playing, and they’ve gotten a lot of use out of this play set already.

Ocean Crafts for Kids

 Tinker loves the little yellow fish best.

Egg Carton Coral Reef Craft

 I think the crab is my favorite part of the set!

Recycled Crafts-Crab

Discover & Explore Sea Life-Crafts Activities and More

Get a Full Week of Ocean Theme Learning and Play

Save time and get right to the playful learning with our printable lesson plan sets. Each set includes over 30 playful learning activities related to the theme, and we’ve provided different versions for home preschool families and classroom teachers so all activities are geared directly toward your needs.

This set includes active hands-on learning ideas and the following printables:

1) Shark Dice Game (color and black/white)
2) Whale Dice Game (color and black/white)
3) Starfish Sorting and Patterning Cards
4) Ocean Letter Matching Puzzles
5) Ocean Life Number Cards 0 to 35
6) Ocean Family Counting Sets for Numbers 1-10
7) Sea Life Cards (for counting, patterning, and sorting)
8) Ocean Roll and Graph Game
9) Sea Life Word Building Cards
10) Sea Life Syllable Sort Activity

Get Your Lesson Plans

Home Preschool Ocean Theme Lesson Plans

Preschool Classroom Ocean Theme Lesson Plans

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Filed Under: Australia, Crafts, Discover and Explore, Kindergarten, Ocean, Preschool, Summer Tagged With: egg carton, fish, ocean, ocean theme, recycled materials, sensory, summer

Previous Post: « Maps, Apps, and Naps–Tips for Traveling with Children
Next Post: Outdoor Easel »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Alyssa

    March 3, 2017 at 3:02 pm

    These are adorable. I wanted to let you know that I am featuring these with a link and photo if you don’t mind.

    Reply
  2. Melissa French, The More With Less Mom

    December 28, 2015 at 5:27 pm

    This is one of my best pins of the year! Thanks so much for sharing!

    Reply
    • Shaunna Evans

      January 3, 2016 at 2:32 pm

      Awesome! Thanks for sharing!

      Reply
  3. Julia

    August 11, 2014 at 1:11 pm

    That blue crab is awfully cute!

    Reply
  4. Angela @CreatifulKids

    May 15, 2014 at 6:18 am

    This looks like so much fun!

    Reply
  5. Sheryl @ Teaching 2 and 3 Year Olds

    March 30, 2014 at 7:22 pm

    Shaunna, these are so cute. I especially love the crab! Thank you for sharing on my Facebook page today!

    Reply
    • Shaunna Evans

      April 10, 2014 at 9:37 pm

      Thank you, Sheryl!

      Reply
  6. Gude @HodgePodgeCraft

    July 24, 2013 at 3:10 am

    These are so cute (especially the yellow fish)!

    I really love sea turtles too, such beautiful, gentle, graceful creatures…

    Reply
    • Shaunna

      July 24, 2013 at 4:48 am

      Ooh, a sea turtle would be a wonderful addition…and easy to put together, too. We’ll have to give that a try!

      Reply
  7. Sara Ella

    July 24, 2013 at 12:13 am

    I love this idea! We have tons of egg cartons. I’m putting this on my home school craft to-do list.

    Reply
    • Shaunna

      July 24, 2013 at 4:54 am

      I’d love to see pictures of your creations. Hope you have fun making them!

      Reply
  8. Momma Jo

    July 22, 2013 at 4:51 am

    These are so adorable!!! Thanks for sharing

    Your post has been selected to feature in Monsters Ed’s Hearts of the Home Blog Hop post which will go live on Thursday, July 25th! Congratulations!!! Remember to grab the “I was featured” button!

    Reply
    • Shaunna

      July 23, 2013 at 5:46 am

      Thanks for featuring us! I’ll be sure to stop by.

      Reply
  9. Domesticated Breakdown

    July 22, 2013 at 1:30 am

    Found you on share it Saturday, we love Ocean themes and now I can’t wait to try this 🙂

    Reply
    • Shaunna

      July 23, 2013 at 5:46 am

      Welcome! We’ve been having a lot of ocean-inspired fun this summer, too. Please let me know if you make your own sea life. I’d love to see them!

      Reply
  10. Katie

    July 21, 2013 at 3:20 pm

    Wow, I am so glad I have come across this website!!! I love that your linky is theme based…it makes my lesson planning so much easier and better too! As long as we do the same units at the same time, I’ll be set ;).

    Reply
    • Shaunna

      July 23, 2013 at 5:45 am

      Katie, I’m so glad to hear that!! When we started the linky I knew I would have loved to come across something like this when I was still teaching in the classroom. I love using the linky for planning our home preschool activities, too. I hope you find tons of great ideas here for your class!

      Reply
  11. Jodi

    July 20, 2013 at 1:44 pm

    I absolutely love these underwater sea creatures made from egg cartons. What a great idea. Jodi @ Meaningful Mama

    Reply
    • Shaunna

      July 23, 2013 at 5:41 am

      Thank you!

      Reply
  12. Jessica @ Play Trains!

    July 19, 2013 at 1:46 am

    That crab is sooooo cute!

    Reply
    • Shaunna

      July 23, 2013 at 5:40 am

      Thanks, Jessica!

      Reply
  13. Mary Catherine

    July 17, 2013 at 8:15 am

    You always have such wonderful ideas to share with the kiddos! I think my favorite is the blue crab too! I’m teaching a beach-themed summer camp at preschool next week. I think I need to work this craft into my plans. 🙂

    Reply
    • Shaunna

      July 23, 2013 at 5:38 am

      Oh, this would be a fun summer camp project. I bet the kids will come up with some very colorful and creative creatures!

      Reply
  14. Hannah

    July 17, 2013 at 6:50 am

    Please come share your cute sea creatures with us at Eco-Kids Tuesday!

    Reply

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