Fishing for Letters

Spring is in the air around here, and it's starting to pop up out of the ground too! There are lots of lovely little green stalks poking their heads up and looking around to see if the warm weather here's to stay. This will be our first spring living on a lake, which means canoeing season will be arriving soon and fishing too. While several people took advantage of our frozen lake- with its eight inches of ice!- to fish this winter, we weren't among them this year. We have got around to some fishing inside though, which is a great way to practice until the weather cooperates- and learn our letters too.

To make the fish, I drew simple fish shapes on construction paper then Isia cut them out. Cutting is such a great skill for preschoolers to practice, especially cutting around forms. This "Let's Cut Paper!" book from Kumon really helped her become more comfortable with scissors, and cutting beyond a straight line. (Which reminds me, I should order another copy for Billy's scissor-loving toddler hands.)

Next she wrote on the letters we were practicing (A through E) and clipped paper clips to the "mouths". Then we  took our long sticks fishing with magnets as bait. At first they just took turns fishing, and getting the hang of it. Then we started to practice the name & sound of the letters they caught. As Isia's grown more comfortable with it, I now have her try to fish for a particular letter. Fishing for particular sound (such as a fish that makes the "kuh" sound), or even for small words in letter order (C-A-T, for example) are next on the list. 

When the weather warms up, we'll have some excellent fishermen on our hands! 

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