Monday, November 2, 2009

Going Fishing...for numbers

NEW ADDITION: Printable Fish Pattern added at the bottom of this post! 
I made these fish a while ago. Firecracker helped me sew the buttons on their eyes. (Meaning she helped with 2 or 3 and got tired of it, although she did help me choose the colors for a lot of them.) I just drew a fish pattern on paper. Sweet Pea contributed by letting me trace one of her favorite teething toys. I cut two fish out of each color. For the dark purple and green I sewed a white stripe on so the marker would show up. I used a Sharpie permanent marker for the writing but "dabbing" to make the shape, so the marker wouldn't get caught in the felt fibers.I had originally planned on making a fishing pole with a loop to go over the button eye, but then saw a fishing game in the Friend magazine (great for Sunday afternoons) that suggested a magnet fishing pole with paperclips on the fish. We certainly love magnets at this house, so I thought this sounded like a good idea. Firecracker liked helping me choose paperclips for them and they make respectable mouths. Then we used the magnet fishing pole that came with one of our puzzles. I have several plans for these fish as Firecracker gets better at her numbers. These work up on our flannel board or Firecracker likes them even better is they're on the floor and she "goes fishing" from on top of the kid craft table.


*Identifying numbers...Firecracker goes fishing and then identifies the number (or I tell her which number to go fishing for.)
*Beginning to add numbers...Firecracker goes fishing for two fish and then uses the dots to help her tell how many the fish add up to.

*More advanced adding...Give Firecracker a number and have her find two fish that add up to that number. (We're not there yet.)

*Identifying Colors (for Boy). Boy goes fishing and then tells what color it is.
Firecracker and Boy are loving them. It makes practicing their numbers fun. Firecracker even went and found a bucket to put her fish in after she caught them.
Number Munching Alligator
I'm linking to:


4 comments:

  1. How cute! And how developmentally appropriate! :)

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  2. Ha Ha -we just played a "fishing" game at Kendra & Katie's Halloween party - Grandpa Mark was behind the screen with the prizes - he was wearing his Christmas-fish hat, so the fish would periodically peek above the screen - made the kids laugh every time. Your fish look much better than ours did.

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  3. Very cool! I think I might attempt this one! :)

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  4. I love this idea! My little guy would love it.

    Thanks for linking up today!

    Kim
    seven thirty three - - - a creative blog

    ReplyDelete

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