How to make a Felt X-ray Fish {ABC Felt Animals}
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I am creating a felt animal for my son for every letter of the alphabet in a new series:Â ABC Felt Animals! Â We have had so much fun making these animals together — and they are helping him learn the phonetic sounds of the letters, so it has been very worth the time and effort put in to make these felt animals!
I think that God created an X-Ray (Tetra) Fish just so kids would have an animal to relate to the letter X. Otherwise, it’s just x-rays and xylophones, right? Â (And boxes, axes, and foxes, if you’re thinking about learning to read). Â Anyways, my son absolutely loved making this little fish and learning about skeletons along the way.
I have tried to be semi-precise with its colors. Â A transluscent body, a white skeleton, an orange tail, yellow and black fins. Â It is actually quite beautiful, eh?
All you need to make a Felt X-Ray Fish is:
- felt: gray, black, yellow, orange, and white
- cotton balls
- hot glue gun (or Elmer’s if you’re just using colored paper)
- amazing Fiskar scissors (if you’re going to work with felt at all, you have to check these scissors out!)
** This craft uses a hot glue gun — please keep out of the reach of children — these are for adult use only!!
This is the only way this makes sense to me. Â I cut the picture I drew out (free printable at the end of this post!) into pieces. Then, I assemble all of my felt pieces — I cut two each of the body, the fins (with black stripes), the tail, and one skeleton (you could do two, but I only put it on the front).
Now begin to assemble and hot glue. Â I just wing it and go as I go. Â (Of course with my sweet John “helping” with his “hot glue gun”.) Â I glued the skeleton on one of the bodies, then glued the fins together — a black stripe on the yellow. Â I really could have not made these double, either way would be fine. Now I glued on the tail and the ready made fins.
And stuffed one body with cotton balls and carefully glued the other body on top — I always use a fork now to wait for it to cool — don’t burn your fingers — it hurts! Â Last, I glued on a little black circle for eyes and a little black line for a mouth on either side and he’s done!
John loved this little guy.Â
I made a template and a coloring page for you to make your own x-ray fish! Â I am not an artist, but I hope you find this helpful! Â
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You can download the X-Ray Fish printable here!
Book Extension
Alphatales to the rescue again. Â This whole collection focuses on one letter at a time. Â Super fun for kiddos. Â We don’t own them right now (I used them when I taught kindergarten), but I really, really want to buy them! Â A Xylophone for X-Ray Fish. Â Perfect and fun.
Other Posts in the ABC Felt Animals Series:
The felt animals are a super way to study the alphabet.
I noticed that you indicated that you are looking forward to starting a new alphabet. Will this include more of the felt animals?
Hi, Shirley! Yes, I will make a felt animal (with a free printable!) for all 26 letters — what I mean is that since I started at letter T, as we do the alphabet again here at our house, I will also be continuing to make the Felt Animals to complete the series! Hope that makes sense! Glad you’re enjoying them :)