ABC Fishing

Over the years I have been teaching preschool, this has been one of my favorite activities because the children really seem to like it and get involved. It is very simple to arrange. All you need is a dowel rod, yarn, a magnet, letter cutouts and paper clips. Attach the paper clips to the letter cut-outs (which I laminate). Then fix the rest of the items into a fishing pole with the magnet as the "worm."

I use the top of this sensory table as the pond, but you can just lay them on the floor or whatever container you can find that's large enough.

The children will take turns "fishing" for letters and when they catch one, tell what letter it is and what sound it makes.

Some other variations of this would be to use numbers instead or shapes, words, animal pictures, etc. It can pretty much be anything the children are working on. Also, you could have them try to catch a particular letter such as the first letter of their name.

Some extensions are graphing which letters were caught and how many times, arranging them in order in the pocket chart after they are caught, or asking questions about what words begin with that letter and even having them write the word.

I hope you have as much fun with this activity as we do!