Fun & Easy Ocean Crafts for Kids

Summer time is the best time to teach your children about the ocean. Giving your kids some fun ocean crafts to go along with an ocean theme or ocean unit study is a great way to teach them about sea creatures and ocean animals. 

Ocean Crafts

We love learning about the ocean over the summer months. It gives us an excuse to take a trip to the beach during the hot summer. Anytime we do a unit study or theme, I am searching for fun crafts to go along with what we are learning.

Ocean crafts are a fun way to keep your kids engaged and give them some hands-on learning while studying about the ocean.

There are lots of cute ocean crafts and easy crafts of some amazing creatures and sea animals of the ocean. Many of these easy ocean crafts use simple materials you may already have laying around your house. 

Supplies needed to make some of the best ocean crafts would be: cupcake liners, tissue paper, construction paper, egg cartons, coffee filters, google eyes, pipe cleaners, toilet rolls and an ordinary paper plate.

Paper Plate Ocean Crafts

I love easy paper plate ocean crafts because they take minimal supplies and don’t make much of a mess. These fun ocean crafts can be made with paper plates.

Ocean Crafts for Kids

You don’t have to have an ocean near you to learn about ocean animals. You can take a visit to your local zoo or an aquarium to be able to see them up close and personal. There are some adorable ocean crafts for kids that will be a fun activity to do before you take your trip.

Ocean Clay Art Craft

Create some ocean animal clay art that can also double as a little toy or decoration.

Recommended Resource: Ocean Notebook – A Companion to Ocean Anatomy by Julia Rothman

Explore the ocean and the animals that live there with Ocean Anatomy and this awesome Notebook Companion™. 

Ocean Crafts for Preschoolers

Preschoolers love to create. They are going to really enjoy these interactive crafts and creating their very own ocean scenes.

Cut & Color Ocean Craft

This interactive sea life spinner is an easy cut and color craft for preschoolers. 

Ocean Craft Thumbprint Animals

These ocean thumbprint animals are perfect for preschoolers who enjoy finger painting and stamping. 

Ocean Cut & Paste Craft

This simple under the sea craft is an easy cut and paste craft with a Bible verse for your little ones to color and cut out.

Fish Crafts

Fish come in all shapes and sizes and they are so much fun to look at. These fish crafts are so creative and a lot of fun for you and your kids to work on together. 

Tropical Fish Craft

Create some cute tropical fish out of simple paper plates and different colors of paint.

Easy Ocean Fish Craft

These confetti fish are so creative and fun to look at. Use lots of random sequins, confetti and buttons you may have around the house to create this easy fish craft.

Paper Plate Fish Craft

Make a paper plate rainbow fish with paper plates and cupcake liners to create the rainbow.

Ocean Crafts

Crabs are some of the cutest ocean animals. These cute crab crafts are sure to delight any child.

Bottlecap Crab Craft

Teach your kids about recycling while making this crab craft which uses bottle caps.

Starfish Crafts

Starfish are beautiful creatures and kids love hunting for them on a trip to the beach. Now they can make their own starfish with these fun and creative craft ideas.

Make a starfish with a simple cut out star and add the starfish texture to it by painting and stamping with bubble wrap. 

Printable Starfish Template

This free printable starfish template will help your kids to create a starfish that actually has legs that move.

Seahorse Crafts

A seahorse is such a fascinating creature. How can this cute little sea creature look almost exactly like a horse? Your kids will enjoy creating their own seahorses with these templates and craft ideas. 

Seahorse Craft Templates

These printable seahorse templates will be a great way for your kids to get creative and create whatever seahorse craft they want. 

Create your own seahorse puppets from a toilet paper roll. These are so cute and would look adorable in a glass jar with some sea shells in it as a table decoration.

Coral Reef Crafts

A coral reef is full of interesting animals, beautiful plants that aren’t even plants but animals, and lots of vibrant colors. Using a coral reef as a theme for a craft or art project is a great idea because they are so bright and beautiful.

Make a Coral Reef Scene Craft

Kids will have a blast making their very own coral reef scene with plastic toob animals, clay and sea shells.

A fun steam activity for kids is to have them create a coral reef from pipe cleaners and plastic beads or straws. They will enjoy designing and building their own coral reef structure and putting it out on display.

Jellyfish Crafts 

Jellyfish are dangerous creatures with a very painful sting, but they can be some of the most adorable animals when you turn them into a craft project!

Lacing Jellyfish Paper Plate Craft

This jellyfish craft will help your kids to practice lacing by hand and is a simple craft that is also a handicraft.

Ocean Paper Craft

Jellyfish can sting, but they sure are cute! This jellyfish paper bag craft is sure to be a fun one for your kids to create. 

Jellyfish Puppet 

This cute jellyfish craft uses a free template to create a cartoon style jellyfish stick puppet.

Turtle Crafts

Sea turtles travel all across the world to lay their eggs. They are wise and resilient creatures that are beautiful and fun to make crafts out of.

As you are creating a turtle craft make sure you talk about ways you can save the sea turtles by not polluting the ocean with plastics. You can even discuss light pollution and how baby turtles hatch and head towards the light thinking it is the moon over the ocean.

Make a cute sea turtle with green paint, a piece of an egg carton and pom-poms. This sea turtle art project is a great craft that uses layering and decoupage of different shapes. 

Shark Crafts

Sharks can be very scary, but they are also super cool. Kids love to learn about sharks during shark week which is held each summer. There are some awesome movies, tv shows and documentaries that you can watch with your kids about sharks as you are learning about them.

Some of these shows that play during shark week can be quite scary, while others are very informative and paint a completely different picture of sharks than what someone may think of when they see a movie like Jaws.

These painted shark rocks would be a lot of fun to hide around the beach or town during shark week.

Handprint Shark Craft

Your kids will have a lot of fun making a handprint paper shark craft using their own handprints. 

Shark Puppet

Foam sheets make some of the easiest crafts. Create a cute shark that actually chomps with this fun chompin foam shark puppet.

Whale Crafts

Whales are beautiful creatures that you normally don’t see on a regular trip to the ocean. Create your own with these adorable whale themed craft ideas.

Make a paper plate humpback whale with this adorable template for a painted whale project.

Floating Whale Craft

This egg carton cup floating whale is the cutest thing with water coming out of its blowhole.

Octopus Crafts

An octopus is a very smart ocean creature. Did you know that they can change their shape and size and squeeze into some of the smallest spots? They are very cool and your kids will have fun learning about them and making their own octopus crafts.

This woven octopus craft will help your children work on their fine motor skills as they weave their octopus together. 

Create a large octopus with very long, wiggly legs out of paper chains. This craft will keep your kids quite busy and if you have more than one child, they can all work together to make their own legs and create one giant octopus craft.

Beach Crafts

The beach is one of the best ways to see the ocean. Kids love playing in the water and collecting sea shells and making sand castles. 

Create a cute paint splat beach day summer scene with this fun craft idea. 

These ocean themed coloring pages are great to cut out and use for a beach theme, or beach crafts with the different animals, sea shells and coral.

Sand Crafts

Playing in the sand is a favorite past time when visiting the beach. These sand crafts are a lot of fun for kids to create and work with.

This beach themed sand and shell art is a fun art project using shells and sand from your beach visit. 

An easy sand art idea for children is by layering colored sand in a bottle to create a table centerpiece and home decoration.

Ocean Activities

One of our favorite things to do when we are working on a specific theme is by throwing a movie night to go along with what we are studying.

Moana is a great movie with a fun ocean theme to it. This quick ocean craft will be perfect to go along with Moana, or another ocean themed movie. 

Ocean Art Project

This ocean art project is a great summer activity for your kids. They will have a lot of fun coming up with their very own underwater ocean scene and seeing it come to life on a canvas.

Another fun art project is to give your child an ocean animal to research, then have them create their own canvas art of the animal they chose. You can also use picture or storybooks and have them pick their favorite from one of their favorite books. 

More Ocean Resources

• Ocean Notebook – a Companion to Ocean Anatomy by Julia Rothman
• Explore ocean habitats with the Sounds of Nature Series.
• Learn ocean terminology with free vocabulary copywork.
• Print some fun ocean writing prompts for kids.
• These free cut and paste worksheets teach your kids about the ocean life cycle.
• Free ocean zones worksheets to print and review.
• Explore deep ocean animals with these free printables.
• These ocean animal printables are great for early learners.
• Practice writing the ocean in cursive with these handwriting worksheets.
• Download a tide pool coloring page and other printables.
• Learn more about fish with these free fish printables.
• Grab some coral reef printables and explore the beauty of the ocean.
• Baby shark coloring pages are fun for Shark Week!

In Conclusion:

As you can see, learning about the ocean and ocean animals opens up a whole world for your children to learn about. Along with that fun ocean theme comes some amazing art projects and ocean art crafts that the whole family will enjoy.