TPiB: Shark Week!

On Wednesday evening, the gloriousness known as Sharknado 2 will be airing on SyFy. And should that not be your cup of tea, Shark Week is coming up soon on Discovery Channel. Basically, it’s that time of the year where it’s not safe to go into the water. Personally, I am a huge fan of sharks. Yes, I really have seen almost every one of those terrifically cheesy shark movies on SyFy. The ones with Debbie – excuse me, Deborah – Gibson. The ones withe Urkel. But not the one where they make fun of Jersey Shore, I tried to watch it but it was too terrible for even me. They even have one with a giant robot shark! That’s a great program idea right there. Well, not giant size, but making robot sharks. So as a shark lover, I give to you some collected program ideas to celebrate Sharknado 2 – or Shark Week for those of you who liked to go a little more high brow. Me, I can’t wait for them both!

Shark Jawbone Paracord Bracelet

This is not actually made with shark jawbones, in case that needs to be said. But here you can make a paracord bracelet, which is cool, that has shark in the name.

Fish Prints


Gyotaku is the Japenese art of fish printing. Sharks eat fish, plus these are cool, so I think they work. The Mr. was an art major at college and I have been to an event where they did this and it was fun. They used real fish, but you can buy kits that use plastic fish which you may want to purchase if you have an aversion to leaking fish guts, which some people do. You basically need something to print on, say a blank t-shirt. You need the fish, real or not, and you need printing ink – the ink used in printmaking, though I guess you could use paint if you would like – paint rollers, pans to pour the ink into, tablecloths, etc. You ink, or paint the fish, and slap it down on your t-shirt to transfer it. Then you get a glorious fish print. Click on the Fish Prints heading above for better directions.

Under Sea Aquariums

There are a lot of ways you can create some type of an undersea aquariums. If you have a blank wall to decorate, you could have your tweens and teens create one here AND decorate your library, it’s what we call win/win. You could use simple things like butcher paper, craft paper, pipe cleaners, beads, etc. Have them do this in your children’s area, put out a display of both fish AND back to school books and put together some punny saying about going back to SCHOOL. Because, you know, fish groups are called a school of fish.

Or you do an upcycle craft using baby food jars or empty water bottles to make little aquarium. You can buy plastic sharks in bulk to make this happen. Instructions can be found here: http://blog.chickabug.com/2012/03/how-to-make-under-the-sea-snow-globe-aquariums.html.

Shark Origami

I think the title kind of says it all. Click the link for instructions.

Crayon Resist Whale Shark

 I’ve always liked crayon resist painting. And, there’s science involved! I admit this is definitely for say the Tween set more so than your teens, but if you have stations and an awesome shark movie playing in the background – may I suggest Jaws? It’s covered under Movie Licensing USA – they may enjoy it.

Clothespin Shark

Yes, again, this one seems youngish. It was very hard to find older shark themed craft ideas. BUT, it’s back to school time and smack some magnets onto these bad boys and you could make a cool Sharknado themed locker. Don’t forget to add some blood!

Shark themed party outline at SheKnows
40 plus Shark Week activities at A Day in Our Shows

This site has 40 Shark Week crafts including making a cool shark themed watermelon, papercrafts and more.

And here is a cool shark themed manicure.

And here is a YouTube tutorial on how to build a Lego Shark

Basically, my thoughts are this:

• Do a book display
• Have Jaws playing in the background
• Have food – it can be something simple like gummy fish/sharks or something elaborate like the watermelon shark
• Have a few craft stations set up
• Get out your smart phone and make Vine video of tweens & teens trying to do the dun dun, dun dun, dun dun dun dun theme music from Jaws. Or reciting some of its most famous lines: “We’re going to need a bigger boat.”
• If you really want to get fancy, set up a photo booth station with shark fins and other fun beach items

Filed under: Crafts, Programming, Sharks, TPIB