Wild Wednesday: Fishing!

Here we have my daughter India and my son Wells exploring a little stream that runs through Fanshawe Park Conservation Area. India spotted it from the trail and got very excited exclaiming “Wells! Let’s go check it out!” India had picked up a walking stick earlier - she used it to poke the bottom of the stream and mix up some silt noting that the water became muddy. Having watched his big sister, Wells looked around for his own stick. He found a big one and exclaimed to his sister, “Indy, big stick!”. He followed her lead and started poking around in the water too. Indy looked to me and said, “We’re fishing!” to which Wells added, “Yeah, fishing!” We weren’t here too long, maybe 10 minutes, but their little fishing expedition would be talked about between them in the next few days many times.

It’s wonderful to be able to look at this play session with my ECE hat on as there is so much learning happening here. Wells was working on his communication skills, specifically his vocabulary as he learned the word “fishing”. When he saw his sister with the stick in the stream, he wanted to do the same but was without the proper tool, so he looked around until he found just the right one building his cognitive skills with some problem-solving. 

For India, there was a lot of cognitive learning going on here too. She was developing her understanding of causality as she mixed up the stream water to make it muddy. She was also using her representational skills when she was pretending to fish. Both kids were developing their fine motor skills as they worked with these sticks, and later on they would each continue to grow their communication skills as they retold and relived this little adventure.

Written by Abby Dique, Fanshawe ECE Student