I first saw the idea for fishing for magnetic letters years ago. I pulled out materials when a friend’s kids came to visit, but we never got around to the activity. Recently, I saw the idea again on Make, Do, and Friend’s blog. Since I already had the materials, I thought it would be great to try with Buddy.

Before we started, I made a fishing pole with a slotted spoon, string, and a large paper clip. I wove the string around the different slots to keep it stable. Then, I put some magnetic letters into a plastic tub, and everything was ready to go.

Buddy was immediately interested in the activity. He wasn’t sure what to do with the spoon at first. However, once I showed him how to “go fishing”, he was excited to try it.

Buddy actually enjoyed when I fished more that when he did (it was a little challenging for him). As we caught letters, we talked about the letter and the color of it. Buddy is really excited about learning colors, so that made it very fun for him.

Buddy quickly decided that scooping letters with a spoon would be easier than fishing. He really enjoyed that as an option. Eventually, he just decided that grabbing letters with his hands would be easiest of all.

Before too long, Buddy wanted to dump all of the letters out. (He still really loves putting things in containers and dumping them out.) Buddy repeated this several times before deciding to play peek-a-boo with the tub.

Eventually, I decided to show Buddy that these were magnets. We took them downstairs and played with them on the back of our front door. We’ve never played with magnets there, so this was a new activity for him. He loved it!

This was one of Buddy’s favorite activities ever! He has played with the letters every day this week. He’s gotten a lot better at naming colors as a result. I’m sure we’ll continue to play with our fishing game for a long time.