Flannel Friday: Fishies in the Sea Math Makeover

I recently realized that I’ve never blogged about some of my favorite ocean flannels! Good thing I noticed just in time for the Flannel Friday Summer Reading Round Up.

First up: Fishies in the Sea!

Flannelboard: Felt fish of different sizes and colors swimming in a blue felt sea.

The original song by Nancy Stewart goes a little something like this:

There are so many fishies in the deep blue sea.
What color fishy do you see?

Can you find the blue fish?

Blue, blue, this one’s blue. This little fishy is blue…
(Repeat with other colors)

Nancy has some great additional verses that focus on counting and comparing different attributes. Her website includes the audio file and a downloadable flannel template, too! Check it out here: https://nancymusic.com/Fishiesplay.htm

There are so many fishies in the deep blue sea.
Can you count the fishies with me… 1,2,3,4,5!

There are so many fishies in the deep blue sea
What color is the biggest fish you see?

There are so many fishies in the deep blue sea.
What color is the smallest fish you see?

Best of all, Nancy includes a verse that doesn’t depend solely upon color recognition!

There are so many fishies in the deep blue sea.
What kind of fishy do you see?

Ahhh, my favorite variety to add in a flannel: TYPE! You can make so many different types of fish: starfish, clownfish, jellyfish, pufferfish…

For my math makeover, I went with these simple striped vs. spotted fish:

Flannelboard: Felt fish of different sizes, colors and patterns swimming in a blue felt sea. Some fish have stripes and some fish have spots. All the fish have fins and eyes.

Simple, small changes like these give us SO MANY opportunities for math talk! We can count, compare, practice pattern recognition, build descriptive vocabulary, and more. The tactile felt-paint patterns are also accessible to children with vision difficulties. Here’s some sample math talk:

• How are these fish the same?
• How are they different?
• How many fish have stripes?
• How many fish have spots?
• Which kind of fish do we have the most of?
• Which kind of fish do we have the least of?
• How can you tell?
• Which fish is the biggest?
• Which fish is the smallest?
• What kind of big is it? (e.g. long or wide)

Depending on how kids categorize the fish (by type, pattern or size), you’ll get different answers. Maybe there are more fish vs. starfish:

Or maybe there are more fish with spots vs. fish with stripes:

You could also add in some flannel fish tanks and practice spatial awareness! Ask the audience to estimate how many fish can fit inside a certain bowl, or match the fish to the right-sized bowl.

Flannelboard: Three felt fish swimming in different sized fish bowls.

Here’s a free downloadable template if you’d like to make some fishies of your own:

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