Counting Fish

In keeping with my little blog mini series on toys...I've posted some counting fish I've made for Middle.   The idea came to me to make some small counting toys during one of my many attempts to help my 3 year old understand the concept of "more" and "less".

I thought about making up my own crochet pattern for them, but decided (in the interest of time) to check online for a pattern instead.  Viola!  I found a cute one here.  I modified the pattern a bit to make my fish a little "stumpier".  I wanted fish that looked sort of like Goldfish crackers.

Stage one of a little blue fish.  The pattern called for a size G hook and everything is done with single crochets in the round.  Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

The almost completed fish.  In order to make them a little shorter in body I omitted rows 8-9 in the pattern.

A finished fish.  The eyes are french knots made with black yarn.

Then it's just a matter of repeating the process for each color.

My completed "school" of fishies. 

Each fish took about 10 minutes to make and, as you can see, I made 2 of each color.

A really quick, cute project to help the little ones learn their numbers, colors, basic math.

You can make as few or as many as you need depending on the time you have to devote to the project.

Middle definately loves the fish and I really think they are helping him understand the concept of more and less, many and few, etc.