Fishing for Letters

Make this fishing craft with your child and use it as an exciting way to practice the alphabet and develop early decoding and reading skills.	Safety Tips Kids 8 years and younger should use child-safe scissors. Keep the craft knife out of children's reach. Watch out for this sign . It means an adult's help is needed for the particular step.
Materials Fishing container (ice cream tub or box) Acrylic paint Paint brush Palette Construction paper Markers Drinking straw or wooden dowel Small magnet Paper clips Scissors String Scotch tape

Steps

	1.	Find a suitable fishing container. An ice cream tub, tissue box, paper bowl with cover, or similar container can be used.
	2.	Make a hole at least 2 inches in diameter at the center of the container's lid.
	3.	Paint your fishing container with your chosen color of acrylic paint. To keep with the fishing theme, you can paint your container blue.
	4.	Paint on some fishes and other aquatic creatures. You may also use fish cut-outs or stickers.
	5.	Prepare the alphabet letters by cutting out 1 in. x 1 in. squares from construction paper and writing a letter on each square. We also have the following alphabet templates that you can print out: Alphabet Letters Interlaced with Objects Alphabet Letter Squares Alphabet Lower Case Letters Set Alphabet Upper Case Letters Set
	6.	Attach a paper clip to each letter square.
	7.	Drop the letter squares into the fishing container.
	8.	Cut string to approximately 1 ½ to 2 feet in length. Tape one end of the string to a small magnet.
	9.	Tie the other end of the string to the end of a drinking straw or wooden dowel.
	10.	Use the fishing rod to "fish" for alphabet letters. Can you identify each letter that you catch?
	11.	You can also do a spelling game. Fish for a few letters and spell something from the letters you just caught.

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