Last updated on October 24th, 2023
Inside: This fishing for colors learning activity is a great way to practice developmental skills while beating the summertime heat. Read on for all the details.
We are coming up on another heat wave over here, so we are all about playing in the water and staying cool. So this week, I thought we’d do a fun little fishing activity in the baby pool.
My toddler is super into colors lately, so I wanted to incorporate practicing our color identification into our activity this week. This activity combined water play and color building skills perfectly and made learning feel fun, which I’m all about.
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What You Need for Fishing for Colors Learning Activity
- baby pool
- plastic fishing net
- colorful objects that will float, such as these plastic Easter eggs
- basket or bucket (optional)
- water!
How To Set Up Fishing for Colors Learning Activity
To set this activity up, you first need to fill up your baby pool with water. Next, gather your net, basket, and Easter eggs and bring them out to the pool. Lastly, throw all of the plastic eggs into the pool. That’s it!
How To Do Fishing for Colors Learning Activity
Once you’re all set up, hand over the net to your kiddo. You may need to demonstrate once or twice how to capture the plastic eggs with the net and dump them in the bucket.
Once they learn how to scoop eggs out and empty the net, you can begin asking them to find certain colors. This can look like, “Can you scoop up the pink egg?”. Alternatively, you could just let them scoop colors at random and practice identifying which colors they find. This will look like, “What color egg did you find?”.
Another option is to practice counting the eggs. You can do this as they scoop eggs and drop them in the basket. You can say, “let’s count how many eggs are in the basket. One…two! There are two eggs in the basket”.
As you can see, there are a lot of different options for dialogue and learning with this activity. Not only is it a great color and number identification exercise, but it is also great for fine motor skills in using a tool to scoop items up.
If you’ve got kiddos in pre-school and kindergarten, you could swap the plastic Easter eggs out for foam letters and numbers. This way, you could practice identifying different letters and numbers that they scoop up. You could ask them to specifically scoop up certain letters or numbers and even spell out words or count!
Relax With The Activity
Don’t be afraid to do a couple of minutes of dialogue and learning, and then let them independent play with this activity. My guy had fun using the net, his hands, and the basket to scoop up the eggs. It was fun watching him find new ways to problem solve in getting the eggs out of the water. Also, it’s totally okay if they scoop the eggs out and just dump them wherever – my toddler was doing some of that too!
Just relax with it and let them guide the activity. Remember that learning should never feel forced, especially at this young age. It should all just be fun and happen if the opportunity presents itself.
If you enjoyed this activity, be sure to check out these other fun activities to try with your toddler! Let me know how your toddler did by leaving a comment below. I love hearing from you!
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