Remember how we started looking at Seahorses as our feature animal, then built a Giant Seahorse Sand Sculptures?

Now… Are you ready to get sticky? This one takes a few sessions to finish, but if your little one likes to get into some papermashe (or is as excited about seahorses as mine are) then it’s worth the mess.

Grab:

• 2 balloons,
• A cardboard tube
• Old newspaper
• Coloured paper and/or paint
• Tape
• PVA glue
• 2 googly eyes

Blow up your balloons (one for the tummy, then the other about half the size for the head – as shown in the image above).

Tape your cardboard tube snout to the smaller head balloon,

Then tape your head balloon on top of your tummy balloon.

All it needs now is a tail! Role up some news paper to make a tail (full length of paper, it will look too skinny for now, don’t bother sticking it on yet).

To bulk out the top part of the tail (where it will join the body) scrunch up some more paper and then wrap it in a larger sheet and hold with tape. (So you have the long tail you originally made running through the middle, some bulky scrunched newspaper around the top part of it, and then a sheet holding it all together like wrapping paper.

Stick this tail to your seahorse balloon body. Yay, you have a seahorse shape!

Now to get messy and reinforce that seahorse.

Mix about 50/50 water and PVA glue in a bowl (this will be very runny, that’s a good thing.)

Tear newspaper into strips. (Every child will love this part!)

Dip a strip of newspaper into the glue mixture, let it drip then put it on the seahorse.

Simply repeat this process until the entire seahorse is covered in strips of wet glue. (Overlapping as much as possible for strength.)

Hang to dry for at least a day. (Dry time will depend on how thick you layered the paper). I also suggest popping a tray under your hanging seahorse while it dry’s (as it will likely drip a bit to start with.

Once dry tap to see if it feels hard enough. If not repeat the sticking and drying until you have a strong seahorse. (How many layers you need will depend on how thick you layered the paper, we did 2 layers including the coloured paper.)

Now decorate your seahorse as you wish. One child voted painting, the other voted coloured paper mashe – so we did both. Glitter was decided to be also a necessity in our seahorse creation.

We work on a plastic mat, keep a pack of wipes near us, and go with the attitude that mess is part of the game. However, if mess is something that makes you feel anxious, then do this one when you have an extra pair of adult hands or you might even feel better doing this one outside. Either way, there will be a bit of mess involved in this activity, so do it on a good day!