I’ve mentioned before we are taking part in the “Smart Summer Challenge”- a challenge by some awesome blogger mommies to make an impact on your child’s learning, even in little ways, this summer. The theme for this week was “Water Fun”, so it seemed a good time to write about this activity Br did a little while ago…
We have this great Melissa & Doug magnetic fishing game, although Br (46 mo) often uses the fishing pole with other stuff. At a garage sale the other day, we found an older version of the same game. I figured getting the “spare one” would be a handy way to minimize jealousy issues, as then Bl (16 mo) could have one too. Turned out Br monopolized both of them the other day, but as it turned out to be a good learning exercise, I’ll let it pass this time. 
Br started out fishing from the side of the couch- great gross motor practice and Awesome hand eye coordination work (especially as the magnet-end swings!)
Once he fished all the pieces out, he sorted them from his (very heavy!) net into the “new” & “old” sets.
Once they were sorted into 2 piles,he matched up the similar animals in the 2 games: great visual discrimination practice and a relatively advanced matching exercise!
Once they were matched, he put the pieces back into the puzzle- nice fine-motor practice.
Proud Momma today that we were able to work on so many skills with a single (duplicate-ish) item… even more so that this was almost all self- directed. Woot, woot!