Oceans of Fun

For the summer, I have pulled out my ocean-themed activities and books to explore with Andrew. He loves picking a story (or two or five...) about ocean animals. I try to have a variety of fiction and non-fiction books for him to look at at read. We especially love Rainbow Fish and the non-fiction readers. Ben even enjoys sitting and listening to the stories.

This is one of the activities that we have tried a few times this week that Andrew has really enjoyed.

Fishy Numbers:

Before starting this activity, or any new activity, I think it is so critical to just let children explore and play with the new manipulatives for a time. Then, you can use them for more specific activities.
I first had him trace the numbers for practice. (I LOVE my yellow highlighter! It is easy to write for me, and easy to see and trace over for my kids. Even better, after they have traced over the highlighted numbers, words, THEIR work is what shows up, not yours.)

Next, I dictated numbers for him to write on the laminated posterboard (with a dry erase marker), one in each box.

Then, I had him put the corresponding number of fish in the boxes. He had so much fun picking the fish and making patterns in the box.
After he finished, I had him re-count his fish, out loud for me. I had him point to each fish as he counted (one-to-one correspondence), and asked him what to do if the correct number of fish were not in the box (problem solving).
The next day after doing this activity, he asked to do it again. Success!

Fishy F's and a little impromptu graphing:

(Sorry this picture didn't turn out, it's very light.)

Using a set of ocean animal stamps, I first let Andrew make an ocean scene. He loved stamping all over his paper. Then, I had him stamp the upper and lower case f's on a new sheet of paper. We talked about how fish starts with f and practiced it's sound. Then I let him play with the stamps on his own, since he was still having fun with them. He independently stacked the stamps like this:
Naturally, this looks like a graph to me, so we talked about it. Which stamp has the most? The least? Do any have the same amount? How can you tell? So much fun!