PURSUE THE PLAYFUL THINGS

Hello.
Isobel loves to play, as do most 2 year olds. She is now in the "what's that?" "what cha doing?" stage and is so interested and involved in anything that she can get interested and involved in.
They say that children are like sponges and it really is true in Izzie's case. She soaks up every little thing, good and bad (which reminds me that I really must curb my swearing) and relays it like it's no big deal, all the while I'm sat there open mouthed wondering how she got so gosh darn smart.

I wholeheartedly believe that children learn best through doing and playing. They are active learners who get the most out of situations that are fun, physically stimulating and engaging, especially when they are young.

Isobel has a super fun Melissa and Doug fishing board game that she loves, which is what gave me the idea for this little craft.

THE FISHY ALPHABET GAME.

The fishy alphabet game is a fun way for me to help Isobel learn the alphabet. She so far has nailed "I for Izzie", "M for mummy" and "D for Daddy" amongst others, using a peg board toy, so I thought now would be a good time to start working on the others letters with her.

I used my advanced technological skills (or lack there of) and spent a stupid amount of time creating the alphabet fishies, printed them, cut them out and backed them on some thick brown card. We coloured the fishes to make them a bit more fun and to give me chance to introduce each letter to her.

I attached a split pin to each fish so that the magnetic fishing rod had something to stick to. I used the toy rod from the fishing game we already had but could have easily made one using a stick or piece of dowel, string and a magnet.

Captain Isobel enjoys catching fishies from the comfort of her laundry basket pirate ship so I used a blue throw to create the sea and let her fish. I called out letters and she reeled 'em in. We often ended up throwing them back to sea as they weren't the letters I had shouted out but I loved that she was having a go and thinking about the aim of the game. I think she'll soon get the hang of it after a few more plays and we'll most certainly be having lots of fun in the mean time.

If you want to make your own game, here is the fishy template ready for you to print. It's super simple but jolly good fun and as I plan on making one as a gift there is even 'to' and 'from' tags on there, handy should you decide to gift one also.



Have fun.

Jade x