Odd And Even Number Fishing

As Adam is confident with using numbers up to 100 we decided to introduce him to the concept of odd and even numbers. It was the first time he had heard these terms and it will take some time before he is confident to use them independently. Our Odd And Even Number Fishing game was a great place to start.

Setting up the activity was straightforward and used items recycled from previous activities. I used the coloured cardboard fish from our #365Penguins project and wrote the numbers 1-20 onto the fish using a permanent marker pen. I ended up creating two sets of numbers so Adam would get lots of practise. In order for Adam to be able to “catch” our fish I added a split-pin paper fastener to each fish. As the pin looked like the fishes eye, I also added a mouth to each fish.

I used our cocktail bowls, recycled from our Plastic Egg Submarine activity, to represent three lakes. I filled one with blue polystrene Easter Eggs recycled from our Easter Core Strengthening activity and in the other two bowls placed blue pom poms. On these two final bowls I used the permanent marker pen to write the words “ODD” and “EVEN”. Finally I added a magnetic fishing rod from our Rainbow Fish Rice Fishing activity.

The object of the activity was for Adam to go fishing in the middle bowl and catch one fish. He had to read the number on the fish and then decide whether that number was odd or even.

Adam then placed the fish into the correct fish bowl.

At first Adam struggled with the concept. He found it easier working out whether the number ended in 2,4,6,8 or 0. If it did then it went straight into the even bowl. If the fish didn’t end in that number then it went into the odd bowl.

As well as developing Adam’s mathematical knowledge of number recognition and learning about odd and even numbers, the activity strengthened his fine motor skills.