Gone Fishing – A Fishing Matching Game

• Free fish printables from Frog Prince Paperie
• Paper and printer
• Yarn
• Paper clips
• Dowel rod

After you print the fish, you can make it an activity to cut them all out. There are 24 in all, so the help is likely to be welcome. After putting the white sides of the fish together and lining them up, take the hole puncher to the fish to create a fun lacing craft for the kids. To make this process easier, I wrapped a piece of tape around the end of my yarn so it would go easily through the holes.

I stuffed these little fish just a tiny bit so they would be more three dimensional; the scraps left over from cutting them out are just enough to plump them up. Before you tie off the lacing, put a little bit of stuffing on the inside.

The last step is to tie the loop on the fish. You’ll want to keep this loop on the short side; if it’s too long, it won’t stand up on its’ own and the kids will have a difficult time “catching” the fish.

The printables were designed with pairs of color/shaped fish. If just catching the fish is too easy, matching can be played to make it a little more challenging.

The fishing rod to “catch” the fish is easy to make and relatively non-lethal (unless they become light sabers like they did at my house.) Bend a paperclip into the shape of a hook and use yarn to attach it to a dowl rod. I’d recommend keeping the string on the shorter side to make it easier to catch fish if your kids are younger and still working on those hand eye coordination skills.

Happy fishing!