Fishing Boat

A lovely toy for water play that engaged and delighted our little testers. They loved how they could catch the fish and also liked how they could be stored inside the boat. When playing independently, the children engaged in imaginative play, creating their own story for the boat and fish – one little girl had fish that were scared of the water and needed saving! This builds storytelling skills and allows children to make sense of the world around them by acting out different scenarios. When playing together, the children could take it in turns with the two rods to catch fish – this was good for reinforcing sharing and turn taking, which are important for collaborative play.

The children were able to talk about the colours and count the fish which was a lovely added bonus, promoting colour and number recognition skills – we even heard some renditions of classic rhymes during play. The toy also features an element of manual dexterity, as the children need to be able to attach the fish onto the hook. This strengthens hand muscles and builds upon hand eye coordination – some of the children found this tricky but there was real excitement and delight when they were successful!