Finding Dory Inspired Learning Placemat

One of our old favorite children’s movies is Finding Nemo. So the kids were super excited to find out about the opening of its sequel, Finding Dory.  I thought I’d capitalize on that excitement with a fun Finding Dory themed learning placemat.

 

Rather than use character names, I thought I’d add to our print rich environment with the names of ocean animals, particularly ones from the movie.

 

My girls were interested to learn that the character of Dory is based on a real fish called a blue tang. They also enjoyed that Nemo is a clown fish.

 

We printed off the placemat and colored each sea creature in with crayons. I also colored the bubbles white – you couldn’t see it, but I wanted to make them resist paint.  That’s because we finished off by painting in the water with blue watercolor paint.

 

 

To make it into a placemat, we found some scrapbook paper in complementary colors. I’d printed the coloring sheet on regular paper rather than cardstock, so you could see through it to the design on the scrapbook paper. Placing the coloring page first on a solid sheet of orange paper solved the problem.

I covered the whole thing with clear contact paper, making sure to leave a little excess around the edges of the paper, and voila! We had a Finding Dory inspired reading placemat.

(Books and Giggles is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.)

 

Finding Dory Inspired Placemat Materials

• Printout
• Crayons
• Blue watercolor paint & paintbrush
• Scrapbook paper
• Glue stick
• Clear contact paper (affiliate)
• Scissors

 

Finding Dory Inspired Placemat Instructions

1. Color in everything except the water with crayons.
2. Paint the water with blue watercolor paint.
3. Trim scrapbook paper as desired to form a frame around the coloring sheet.
4. Lightly glue the back of the coloring sheet, and adhere to the scrapbook paper.
5. Once the glue dries (which doesn’t take long), cover the front and back with contact paper and trim excess, leaving a small edge where the top and bottom contact paper stick together with no paper in between.

Once your placemat is ready, your little reader can snack and read. Encourage verbal skills as well by talking about ocean animals and Finding Dory.