Making fishing rods - 23rd September 2010

Selecting our materials to making our fishing rods

Putting the finishing touches on our rod.

Trying out our rods"look I caught a fish"

Both tamariki are trying out there rods.

So did we catch a big fish? "No but my Dad goes fishing and so does my brother".

"My Dad and my Uncle they go fishing too" 

From our children's interest in sea creatures especially fish and fishing this week was all about making and using rods. Today its making rods. Some of the children and I looked through books first on how we could make a fishing rod. Then we made a list of some of the materials that we might need to make our rods.

Items:

• Nylon string, wool or plain string
• Long ice block sticks
• Scissor
• cellotape
• glue
• paper clips
• magnetic strips
• paper to make fish 
• crayons, chalk, markers or other materials to decorate fish - glitter, foam, wool...
• Pen or pencil

Now that we have all these materials lets make our rods. Some of the children wanted to make their fish first and even though we looked through books and seen real fish ( we have a fish tank in the Centre) they were happy to create and design there own fish and even though some had parts missing it didn't matter, because they looked great. And for the children, as long as they can catch it with there rod. There were lots of different shapes, sizes and coloured fish and the children were showing others that were next to them or across the table, even showing me. While working with them we did some waiata that are about fish or sea creatures; Fish alive, One day a taniwha, Toru nga ika, Tohoraha. When doing these experiences children enjoy putting things together and decorating when finished provided they have the opportunities to explore their interest that these experiences for them will be memorable and from time to time we as educators can revisit with children whenever the subject or topic comes up. Smorti (1999) agrees that when looking at technology "educators are indeed providing children with opportunities to explore technology"(p. 7).
When the children started on there rods the conversation was about the ice block sticks - how did we get these sticks like this? where did the ice-cream or ice block go? Talking with the children and telling them that you can buy the ice block sticks like this and without the things that they had mentioned and that you can make your own ice-blocks. So we can guess what there next interest could be! Then to finish off the rods the children used tape to stick down our string and we use tape and paper clip for the magnetic strip to make a fish hook. Great we have finished so are we ready to go fishing? "Yes, they all said"