One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, by Dr. Seuss, is a double-your-fun book for both some math and colors. Add in some readiness for kindergarten, and that makes it a triple.
Fishy crackers are a tasty math manipulative. Together L, who is three, and I counted out 10 fish crackers, saying the number and touching each cracker and saying the number at the same time. When L popped one into her mouth I asked her now how many crackers did she have. She thought about it for a few seconds and as soon as she realized she’d have one less than before she took it out and put it back on her plate! Learning math comes with experience. Counting, 1 to 1 correspondence, adding and subtracting are all some learning activities to do with fishy crackers and this fun Dr. Seuss book.
For a simple craft, trace a fish on a paper and let your child color or paint. I saw some really cute, colorful ones on a Dr. Seuss bulletin board. After this fish was painted all one color, I used a tee-shirt to show the idea of polka dots and soon 1 hand wasn’t enough for making dots and both hands were dabbing on colors.
Many kindergarten readiness checklists include being able to name at least some colors. This gives teachers an idea of a child’s level of thinking skills. Kids who are having difficulty learning colors may be struggling with other concepts, too. There is no doubt that learning colors is a learning challenge. There are many variations to each color and many different objects may have the same color. Kids need to see lots of things that are that color and lots that are not, gradually figuring out which shades go with which name.
Just like this book, there’s lots of ways to learn with fish. Do you have some other suggestions?