Fishy literacy game

A do-it-yourself game that helps early readers connect capital letters with their lowercase equivalents. Thank you to guest blogger Dawn Little, for this post.

Here is a fun letter match game to help your child recognize and match capital letters to lower case letters.

1. Gather your materials: One small magnet, a wooden dowel, yarn, glue, construction paper, markers, scissors, and 52 paper clips (and 26 googly eyes, if you'd like).

2. Make a fish template on a piece of construction paper. Use the template to cut out 52 fish (26 capital letters, 26 lower case letters). Give your fish smiles and either make an eye using marker or glue a googly eye on each one. Attach paper clips to the mouth of each fish, like a fish hook.

3. Make a fishing pole by tying a piece of yarn to one end of the dowel. Put glue on one side of the magnet and attach it to the hanging end of the yarn.

4. Scatter the fish on a table or the floor. Give your child the fishing pole and call out letters, calling out a capital letter first. After your child catches that fish, call out the lower case letter match. Ask her to match the lower case letter with the capital letter.

It's a good idea to use only half the alphabet at a time; for instance, A through I. Do J through K next time; you don’t want to overwhelm your child. Plus, if you only do half the alphabet, you’ve separated out the tricky b/d and p/q, which can be confusing for kids.

I adapted this game from the School of Fish Game at No Time for Flashcards.

Have fun fishing!

Dawn Little (aka Links to Literacy on Twitter) blogs at Teaching With Picture Books, providing educators with picture book lessons based on comprehension strategies and the Six Traits of Writing. She also blogs at The Literacy Toolbox, where she provides educators and parents with tips and tools to enhance the literacy lives of children. She is the founder and owner of Links to Literacy, a company dedicated to providing interactive literacy experiences for children and families.

Did you spot those cute little Dawn's-daughter's-toes in the bottom left of the photo? Cute little fisher-girl.