Create a garland for April Fools Day

For kids Creative activities

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Make a fish garland with the children for April Fools day!

A colourful decoration that can be easily made in a group with just a little string, kraft paper and corrugated cardboard.

With just a few snips, you can create a pretty garland to decorate the classroom!

Materials:

Canson® corrugated cardboard : brown, white, orange, yellow, blue and red
Canson® Kraft Paper: yellow
Small black stickers or black felt pen
White round stickers (or circles of white paper)
Scissors
Glue
String (or wool)

The explanations for using fish on April Fools Day are many and it's difficult to know which one is the correct one, but the two most common are

- the closure of the fishing season is at the beginning of April so fishermen may have been offered fake fish, to replace the real thing!
- because of lent, a period during which people ate fish instead of meat, they may have given each other fish once the fast was over.

Creating the pompoms

To create the pompoms out of kraft paper, cut out several 5x20cm strips.
Fold each strip lengthwise and fringe with scissors.
Make a small loop of wool and staple it in the centre of each fringe.

Assembling the back bone

To make the back bones of the fish, cut the corrugated cardboard into lengths of about 40cm and a minimum of a centimetre wide (in the opposite direction of the grooves).
Fold each length in half and glue them grooves to grooves, keeping a small loop so you can attach the fish to the string.

Creating the smaller bones

To make the smaller bones, cut rectangles 3 to 8cm long and about 1.5 cm wide in the direction of the grooves.
Glue the rectangles onto the back bone, placing the smaller ones at either end.
Cut out a half-oval shape to create the head of the fish and stick it on one end of the back bone.

Cutting the bones

Once the bones are glued, cut them back to give the fish a nice curvy shape.

Creating the eyes of the fish

The background of the fish's eyes are made with a circle of brown corrugated cardboard, glued grooves to grooves.
On this, stick black and white stickers to make the pupil, or you can draw it in black felt pen.

Finishing and assembly

Finally, cut the fish tails in red corrugated cardboard and glue them to hide the cardboard loop you made previously.

Your pompoms and fish are ready to be strung on a cord to decorate the classroom!