Thursday, July 8, 2010

F is for Fish

We have been working on the letter F and reading some of my favorite fish theme books. While most of these were chosen because the main characters are fish; many do provide some details about fish. Depending on your child's ages, they may also introduce new vocabulary like fin and scale.
  • Swimmy by Leo Lionni: A tale of working together to overcome a big problem, as in a much bigger fish in the ocean. The concept of fish being eaten by other fish was a little scary to ER.
  • The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfisher: Rainbow Fish learns that sharing and having friends is better than being alone. The shimmery scales throughout continue to fascinate ER.
  • Fish, DK Eyewitness Book: Quintessential nonfiction book full of photo illustrations, this one of my favorite series; an always reliable nonfiction resource. There is so much to look at on each page; it kept ER's attention for a long time. Fun to look through and read a few captions here and there at her age.
  • One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish by Dr. Seuss: Not really a fish book, regardless of the title but still fun and filled with the ridiculous rhymes and fanciful characters Dr. Seuss is known and loved for. This one was included because when I told ER we were going to do F is for Fish, she told me she had a fish book and went to get this one.
  • Fish Eyes by Lois Ehlert: A brighly colored counting book and a favorite board book check out from our library. It's always fun to imagine you're a fish!

While working on letter F, we created this cute fishbowl out of a paper plate. To make this simple craft: Cut plate as shown above. Paint the larger part blue for the water and the smaller portion the color of your choice. It represents the gravel at the bottom of the fishbowl and since this comes in many different colors, it's pretty much up to you. Glue together as shown, for a mess free method that eliminated the wait time for white glue to dry, we used Glue Dots. You could also staple, but this gives a prettier result, no metal staple showing☺
We added a few torn strips of green tissue paper to represent seaweed or other underwater plants (this time with white glue) and a few fish.We also ate one of my all time favorite alphabet themed snacks. I got it from my very first mentor teacher way back in junior year of college during my first school placement. It's easy to do and require no prep and only a few ingredients.

Fishing Snack Ingredients: one pretzel rod, scoop of peanut butter or spreadable cream cheese if nut allergies are a concern, handful of fish crackers, paper plate

(Note: Best with peanut butter, as opposed to cream cheese and get the flavor blast fish crackers if possible.)Take a rod and go fishing for your snack. Dip rod into peanut butter and get a small amount on the end. Use peanut butter on the end of your pretzel rod to "catch" a fish by pressing down on top of a fish cracker on your plate. Pick up and take a bite. Continue biting and catching until your pretzel rod fishing pole is gone. It's a delicious combination of salty sweet, plus it's always fun to play with your food☺

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Disclaimer: The Glue Dots used in this project were provided to me for the TwitterMoms and Glue Dots blogging contest but is not my official Summer Bonding Project. While the Glue Dots used in this project were provided to me, I have and continue to use and purchase them myself.

17 comments:

  1. What a clever way to use the paper plate! I LIKE! And I like your fishing game even better! My word, red ted is going to love that one!!!

    Maggy

    http://redtedart.wordpress.com/

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  2. The fish bowl is so adorable. I'd love to try it by using some bubble wrap and paint to make a water print on the plate.

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  3. I love that fishing snack! I can't wait to do it with my children :)

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  4. Fishing for a snack-love it.

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  5. Great post! And your daughter is adorable.

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  6. This is awesome!! I love paper plate projects, and this one is super cute. I really need to get my hands on some glue dots, they look like they are great to use for kids projects.

    Thank you for linking to stART and sharing your wonderful ideas :0)

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  7. I love paper plate art projects. I seem to have gathered stacks on plates. This one is so colorful and fun.

    The fishing activity looks like fun. JDaniel would love it.

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  8. I love this. Now that I'm doing daycare again I can do this fun and easy craft. Love goldfish and peanut butter:)

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  9. Cute idea for a snack...Nathan would love that! I also love paper plate art projects, it's fun seeing so many different things you can do with them. Great fish bowl!

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  10. I meant to add that I'm stopping via stART!

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  11. I love the Rainbow fish book!

    Cool project Katie! Also, nifty idea with the pretzels and pb and goldfish. I should try it. Get my two younger girl to eat different things.

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  12. This is awesome!! E and I are "going fishing" next week now;) Thanks for the idea:)

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  13. I LOVE the fishing idea! My son would have so much fun with that. I just have to think of substitutions for pretzels, peanut butter, and goldfish (Ha, welcome to our life with allergies). Peanut butter can be subbed with "sunbutter" which has the same consistency and nearly the same flavor. :) Hmmm, mini marshmallows, chocolate chips, dried blueberries, raisins etc. could be fish. But what for a fishing rod...

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  14. Oh, I know! We could make our rods out of celery sticks and carrots. :)

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  15. Oh I love how you turned the paper plate into a fishbowl! Great ideas here and it looked like you had fun with Fish week :)

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