Sammie the Salmon by Debra Kline and illustrated by Lynda Farrington Wilson is a lovely book about a salmon who is very small trying to grow and survive in the big wide world. The book is written by a Mommy who has a son who was born premature and he is the inspiration for this story. The story rhymes, has beautiful pictures to look at and the paragraphs are short and sweet. My son loves listening to this story before bed and he likes that the salmon is so little and cute.
Activities
Growing up timeline
Make a fish tank
Decorate a cardboard fish
A trip to a pet shop or garden centre
Catch some fish
Throw some fish
Taste salmon
Jelly and fish activity
Fishy fruit
Indoor
There are so many fun activities to go along with this book. The first could be to look at how we all grow. Grab some photos of when you were young and show them your child/children and then get their baby pictures out. You could make a timeline and show how you grew from being a baby into a toddler into a child into a teen and then into an adult. Your child/children can then look at how they have changed and they can tell you about the different things that they can do now that they couldn't before. You could talk about how Sammie the Salmon changed in the book and the different things he learnt. You could make a fish tank with your child/children using a cereal box. Cut a large rectangular hole in the front to make it look a bit like a TV and then you can paint the inside blue and add some paper decorations that the fish might like. To make the fish use the card that you cut out and draw and decorate the fish. You could use glitter, coloured paper or pens for the scales. Punch a hole in the top with scissors or a hole punch and then thread string or thread through and hang from the top of the box to make it look like they are swimming against your decorated back drop. These are a good pet to have as you don't have to clean them out and they are very quiet. A final indoor activity could be to make a large cardboard fish and then your child/children could decorate it with bottle tops, sequins and other shiny bits that they can find. They could make a big one and a little one and then use these as props for when you are reading the story.
Outdoor
You could take your child/children to look at some fish at a local pet shop or garden centre. They could look at all the different ones and see if they prefer cold water fish tanks or warm water fish tanks. For an activity involving water you could fill up the paddling pool or a large bucket/tub and then add some balls or some bottle tops and your child/children could try and catch them as if they were fish. They could use a small fishing net or a ladle or their hands. You could add letters or numbers and challenge your child/children to catch them in a particular order like numbers one to ten forwards and then backwards. They could do the alphabet and then you could get them to catch letters to make words. If you have some bean bags or balls available then your child/children could throw them in a bucket. Salmon have to swim upstream so the bucket could start low and get higher or you could start it close and then move it further away. If you have more than one child you could get a bit of a competition going.
Food/Cooking
If your child/children haven't tried eating salmon then you could make something with salmon in so that they could try it. You could do this a couple of times as one time you could do smoked salmon and then another time you could do cooked salmon as they taste very different. For a food activity where they can eat and play you could get some green or blue jelly and make that as the sea and then get some sweetie fish to put in and your child/children can have a play and then eat it when when they have done. This is a good sensory activity and you could talk to them about how the jelly feels. A final food activity could be to make fish out of fruit. If you put yoghurt in a large dish or on a plate and make some chopped up fruit available then your child/children can make fish using the fruit to go in their sea of yoghurt. They could get very creative with this and it's a healthy breakfast, dessert or snack.
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