First off, I should be honest and say that my daughter didn't make this craft - these misshapen fish are all of my own unimaginative creation. But she didn't care how they looked, she loved the fishing game and her and her friends had loads of fun with it.
We went away for a few days recently and our Trunki full of toys somehow stayed behind, so I had to make a plan for toys and activities, and thanks to the wonder of Pinterest, I am happy to say I spent an evening making up toys and activities for the weekend with a minimal cost and much more joy out of it than effort put in to it. In fact, my daughter loved the 'busy bag' activities so much, she now asks for them at home almost daily.
I'm sure there are much better versions 'out there', but for our version of the fishing game, you will need:
- Dish clothes or felt - dish clothes are so much cheaper and do the job just fine
- Paper clips - one per fish
- Scissors and marker pens
- Fabric glue
- String
- Magnets - I randomly had some in my bag, but you could cut up those that come through as adverting from pizza places and similar
- Chop Stick or a straw or even a twig will do
Fold your cloth in half and draw a fish on the fold. Ideally you'll probably just work with two layers at a time to make sure they are identical, but I was impatient and wanted to make four fish shapes -two fish - at a time. The dish clothes were pretty thin, so that was easy to do.
When you've cut all the fish you'd like, place a metal paperclip between the two halves of a fish, and glue the two bits together, keeping the paperclip inside. I left the tails free so they could 'move' independently, but that's up to you. Do this with all the fish.
Glue the magnet to a piece of string on the one side - always use this game under supervision so these magnets don't get swallowed - and on the other attach it to a chopstick, straw or twig.
Lay the fish out on a surface and supply in a bowl that can serve as a 'pond' to scoop the fish into and hover the magnet over one. The magnet will attach to the paperclip in the fish and your seriously excited toddler will gleefully fish until all the fish are caught.
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