Fishing for Paper Fish with Magnets

Over the weekend we turned one of our big moving cardboard boxes into a pretend fire engine. Mr Mischief had been asking about this for a while and we finally got around to making up the box and letting him loose. Once the excitement of the "nee-naw" wore off he was finding other fun ways to play with the box. He dragged over a dining room chair and a long-ish scrap of yarn and was laying on the chair pretending to "fish" in the box. All of his own accord - I can take no credit for this whatsoever!

But then a lightbulb flashed above my head! I remembered from years ago "fishing" using magnets and I was out of the chair searching through the junk drawer and random boxes.

I came up with some fish roughly cut out of paper scraps (with faces drawn on with a Sharpie) which I then attached a magnet to the back of. I was planning to cut up some of those flat type advertising magnets we had but actually found 6 plain magnet discs I could use. I attached them to the fish with some double-sided tape (where would I be without that stuff?!)

Next up we made the "rod" by attaching the strongest magnet I could find (I knew I was keeping my magnet stash for a good reason!) to a long piece of yarn using washi tape.

We used a blue plastic tray as a pond and arranged the fish inside it. We demonstrated the rod picking up the fish at a high, up close level to begin with and then pretty soon Mr Michief was off on a roll! We laid the pond on the floor and he sat/stood on the couch to catch his fish.

This activity was so quick and easy to prepare and entertained him on and off for the rest of the afternoon and evening. I have put it aside for now but will likely bring it out again when he's looking for something to keep him busy.

I'm not the best at planning out activities like this on a regular basis so find that jumping right in when the idea comes is the best way to introduce fun like this!

This week I am linking up with Miriam's Becoming the Mama I Want to Be. Why not head over for some other great parenting ideas and inspiring stories?