Colorful Fish Art !

    So, earlier in the week we stopped at Michaels to grab a few things to have an Art day dedicated to... guess??  FISH !

    But FIRST... I am so excited to share my Garage Sale finds!! I try to check out garage sales whenever I can but so far this summer, I haven’t done it too much. While I was checking out some stuff online about New York Teacher Certification, I came across an ad for a small child care program that was closing and first thing this morning, my little mucnchkin and I were out the door!

    One hour and $8.00 later, we came home with a Fishing Game, A Duck, Duck Goose card game, 8 books, 2 Sesame Street puzzles, 2 My Little Pony stuffed animals and 1 Unicorn doll!

The favorite of the day was the “Let’s Go Fishing Game”  =)

Perfect game for our Fish Theme!

    I often try to link a book with an extension activity that is either an art activity or a writing activity. Since it was Art Day, I opted for some fun and colorful art activities after we read “Rainbow Fish” by Marcus Pfister. There are so many different art activities that anyone can do with this book! TONS can be found on Pinterest alone!

    Here are the 2 art activities that we did:

    We made a Rainbow Fish with a CD disc and some plastic gems.      (This one I found on Pinterest) 

    And then I grabbed some colorful tissue from my art supply box and instead of using aluminum foil, I found some metallic tissue paper in my Christmas box! I cut all the tissue into squares and then cut a piece of cardboard into a fish shape. The little munchkin then used a paintbrush to spread glue onto the fish shape and we both covered up the entire shape with the tissue paper. (This one is an activity I do almost every year with my preschool munchkins)

Wa-La!  Rainbow Fish again!  =)

    And what is an Art day without paint?! Here is the fish we made using her handprint and some colored circle stickers, as bubbles.

    We ended our Art day by reading the book “Swimmy” by Leo Lionni, (one of my favorite Fish books) and then we ate a little Swimmy snack!

Fishy Math Fun plus * FREEBIES*

    Well, I have had quite the busy week! We had familly from Texas visiting this week and it was tons of fun! We went to Niagara Falls (American Side) and my husband and I literally walked across the border to Canada, with my cousin! 

    Then we went on a boat tour along Lake Erie. It was so fun to have famliy visitng because being out here without family and friends can get lonely, so we are more than ecstatic when we have visitors!  =)

    Now that the kids and I are settling back into our routine, I am back here blogging! I have some fun Fishy Math activities to share, and since Teaching Blog Addict is hosting FREEBIE FRIDAY, I also have 2 FREEBIES for you! =)

    My little munchkin and I do a lot of math activities throughout the day. She loves to count everything and she is very good at it! Here are a few activities that we did this week.

   We start everyday with our calendar, which gives her practice counting and I try to  focus on one number a day to help her with number identification. 

    I saw this bulletin board idea in this Mailbox Ocean Animals Theme magazine and loved it. 

    All you need is some fish cutouts, magnetic strips and a chalkboard or magnetic whiteboard. Everyday I change the amount of fish that I put out and I also put out 2 numbers that she can chose from. This helps her identify numbers and match it to the set of fish that are on the board. 

I absolutely LOVE The Mailbox magazines!

     Also using another Mailbox resource (Literacy Envelope Centers), I used these Fish Twins mats to help her with her visual discrimination and matching skills.

    

** FREEBIE ALERT! **

     Since I loved this mat so much and figured other moms and teachers might too, I created my own. I had a fishing set from Lake Shore learning and instead of having her use paper cards, I used the plastic fish that were in our Scoop & Play Fishing kit, from Lakeshore Learning.

(There are several other things that can be used, like other types of plastic fish, fish erasers, goldfish crackers, etc.)

    We took the learning fun outside on a warm day, and I poured some colorful gravel into  her water table along with the fishing set… Water Table Fun!

    Another thing that my little munchkin is working on is matching number to set. So I made another math mat, similar to the Fishy Twins mat. I gave her fish erasers and some magnetic numbers. I helped her identify the numbers and then she counted out the erasers and put them on the Fish Bowl mat.

Click either of the pictures below for your FREEBIES!

I also linked up with TBA's Freebie Friday! Click here or below for more fun freebies!

    Today we are heading to Michael's to pick up some arts & crafts materials to create some fun fish art! =) Stay tuned....

Ff is for Fish !

    “Fishy, Fishy, swimming in the water, swimming in the water”…. That is what my little munchkin has been singing in the bathtub with her new fish squirt toys.

    Since we just wrapped up our Flower unit and a mini Firework unit, I decided we could still work on the letter Ff. 

Ff is for fish right?   =)

       We reviewed the letter Ff on our Letter Chart and then had fun with our dot paint and our Letter Ff search worksheet from a Letter Land Alphabet Pack from Live, Love, Laugh Everyday in Kindergarten.

    I was doing some blog hopping and searching some of my favorite blogs and found some awesome Ocean/Fish printables.

3Dinosaurs has a wonderful Ocean Unit, 

It includes aTot Pack for younger munchkins. 

That’s where I found these cute fish puzzles. I printed them, laminated them, cut them out and put them in a little basket and had her put them together.

     

     I also referred  back to my Letter of The Week Curriculum purchase from Confessions of a Homeschooler for another kind of Fish puzzle. 

I will also be using other printables from this curriculum as we continue with our Fish unit. =)

     I had purchased 2 sets of these Letter Stencils from Lakeshore Learning awhile back (one for myself and one for the classroom) that can be used in different ways.                                   

   

    I am using my set with my little munchkin. The stencil is pretty big and so, rather than have her paint on the table or her small easel, I taped a legal size paper to the basement door (where our ABC Chart usually is) and had her paint there!

There is lots more Fishy and Letter Ff Fun to come! 

If you have any Fun Fishy Activities, PLEASE feel free to share!