My 3-yr. old is fascinated with the concept of fishing. His uncle promised to take him fishing someday, but in the meantime we bought the electronic Fishing game, the card game Go Fish, and even a plastic fishing pole and fish with magnets which broke the very next day from overuse. Today we made a game that did more than all of these store-bought solutions for fun. It reinforced number recognition, and it is simple to make.
First, we cut 10 fish out of construction paper and put a number on each 1-10 and added an eye and also dots representing that fish’s number on the tail. Then, we added a paper clip for the fish mouth. With a stick connected to a string connected to a magnet, my son “fished” for the number that I called out. We paused occasionally to count the dots on the fish tail that matched the number.
This game also teaches eye-hand coordination and one-to-one correspondence. Pure homemade fun. Happy Fishing!
Source: Brown Sam. One, Two, Buckle My Shoe Math Activities for Young Children. Gryphon House, Inc., MD: 1982.
