1,2,3,4,5 once I got a Fish alive

What do you do when sleet and freezing rain occurs and preschool closes for a week time? You can make a Homemade Fishing game! In the second week of January we got sleet rain and CJ preschool was closed for a week. During the Vacation, We created a DIY Fishing game:-) CJ has a fascination for fishing, She really enjoyed creating the game.


Day 1: I was thinking of making Fish and Crab outlines but CJ wanted to add other Sea creatures. So we ended up creating sea horse, star fish, jelly fish and octopus.

Materials Used:

22" x 28" Poster Board
Summer Fun sand Molds (we had Fish and Crabs molds)
Markers, Poster colors
Paint Brush
Flat recycled Styrofoam vegetable container
Child Safe Scissors
X-acto knife or craft knife
Jelly fish, Sea horse and star fish templates(Can be downloaded from this post)

Steps Overview:

Fish and Crab:

We used different methods to draw the fish and crab

1. Tracing outlines and coloring: Place the Fish/Crab mold on the poster board and draw the outline of fish as shown below
   
   CJ likes making faces on her paintings. she made a happy face on the fish
   
   Then let your kid paint the fish with marker, Crayons or poster paint.
   
   
   Same way you can create crab pictures.
   
2. Stencils and painting : Draw fish outline on the recycled Styrofoam container as shown below.
   
   Using a X-acto knife or Craft knife, Cut along the outline to create a stencil as shown below.
   
   
   Place the stencil on the poster board and let your kid paint as shown below
   
   
   
   Remove the stencil out and Hurray u created your fish/crab
   
   

We created a stream of fishes and crabs using the above ways

Now that you have got a bunch of them, cut out the fish and crabs.

For the Fish and Crab, Template given below can also be used


Jelly Fish:
Download the template below


Cut the body of the jelly fish using the template. Cut the rectangular shape and cut fringes. Glue them together to make Jelly fish. Paint them as you fish wish

Sea horse:
Download the template from above.

Starfish and Octopus:
Download the template below


Glue on the magnets to the Sea creatures




Day 2: Fishing pole and Underwater scene

To make the fishing pole:

Materials Used:

String or yarn
Bigger diameter Dowel
Masking tape or glue
Clip(I had this broad surface clip that came as a connector for aluminum baking plates)

Steps Overview:

1. Glue yarn/rope to one end of the dowel stick. I used masking tape
2. Glue or fasten a Clip using Sticky tape/Masking tape to the other end of the yarn
   
   
   Fishing Pole Ready!
   
   

Underwater scene:

Materials Used:

22" x 28" Poster Board
Styrofoam container(for mixing paint)
Scotch brite heavy duty sponge(New one)
Water Paint/Poster paint
Child Safe Scissors
Sea shells(optional)
Bubble wrap(optional)
Glue

Steps Overview:

Mix blue poster paint with water as needed. Let the kid dip the scotch brite sponge in the solution


Get your kid to make strokes in the horizontal direction. You can ask them to make it wavy to give wave effect. Let your kid to paint from the top of the poster board(I inverted the poster board for easy access).




When they complete painting the Water surface, Same way let them paint the sand surface.


Freehand some leave designs, coral design on to construction paper or poster board and let your kid cut them out. You can let them color the designs or use colored construction paper. Glue the leaves to sand. Just glue the base of the leaves to sand. This gives a swaying effect for the leaves, coral, seaweed.

I had saved a collection of sea shells from our last summer Beach visit. CJ glued the sea shells to the sand.


Using Bubble sheet we gave a pebbly effect to one side of the sand.


Underwater scene completed!


Day 3: CJ loved her underwater scene creation and she had fun fishing for the sea creatures.
First I let CJ arrange them in random order. She had fun arranging them!




Fishing time!!(oops may be I should find a common name for crabbing, Jelly fishing)


I taught CJ to place the sea creatures in appropriate places like sea horse behind sea weed, starfish on the sand, Crab on the Sand. From the next phase of fishing, She kept them in the same order.


Day 4: Rhymes

We practiced the counting out rhyme related to fish

One, two, three, four, five,
Once I caught a fish alive,
Six, seven, eight, nine, ten,
Then I let it go again.

Why did you let it go?
Because it bit my finger so.
Which finger did it bite?
This little finger on my right.

When CJ was 18 months old, "Waves at the beach" rhyme was sung at the library Story time and since then it has been her all time favorite. She marked waves with a Blue marker pen on the Underwater scene/Mat. We played waves at the beach activity(Though we didn't have the lobster)

Waves at the Beach
Sung to: “Wheels on the Bus”

The waves at the beach go up and down, up and down, all day long
The crabs at the beach crawl back and forth, back and forth, all day long
The lobsters at the beach go snap, snap, snap, all day long
The clams at the beach will open and shut, open and shut all day long
The jelly fish go wibble wobble wibble, wibble wobble wibble, all day long

Other Ideas:
Mark the fishes/crabs with Numbers/Alphabets. Helps in Alphabet?Number learning
The fish shapes can be transformed to any shape and we can play a shape fishing game