gone fishin’

Another activity we do with our very young classes is fishing.  The thing I like most about fishing activities is how they can be used over and over with kids from two on up.  Young kids love them and even though I rarely ever do it with Elementary-age kids, it never stops them from begging to play a fishing game if they ever catch sight of the fish lying on the shelf.

You’ll need three things for fishing…

1/ Fish (bet you figured that one out already)
2/ Fishing poles
3/ Some rope to make a lake/ocean.

The best fish are….

About 8 inches long, in various colors.  (e.g. we have class sizes of 4-6 students so we have sets of 6 fish in every color.   Laminated–to make them last long.  Draw fish on both sides of the cutout and on one side write numbers, the other side, ABCs.  This way, you can fish for not only colors, but also numbers or letters.  Clip (and tape) a large paperclip onto the mouth of the fish.

The best fishing poles …

Have a short thick dowel that children can hold easily.  (long and thin doesn’t work well for very young kids).  String that is thick and heavy to avoid tangling because IT WILL happen no matter how careful you are.  Keep the length short.  The smallest, strongest magnet you can find, because fishing isn’t easy when you are two.  I’ve tried countless ways to make the magnets stick to the string but they always fail and I end up taping them so…just tape them!

You can fish for colors, numbers, ABC’s, and to mix things up/tie it in with your current topic, stick mini pictures of your vocab for the month to the paperclip under each fish.  Then, talk about the vocab each student finds under the fish. 

Trying to think of some simple fishing songs now….

Any ideas?