Alphabet Adventures: F is for Fish Hatchery

We were excited to head out on this adventure. We knew we easily could have gone fishing for the letter "F" but we wanted to do something a little different. So we headed to a local fish hatchery instead. We brought our Big Niece along and she loved coming on the adventure. The clue bag contained the letter F and a toy fish. She was great at trying to guess where we were going and we were impressed with some of her connections. But we did need to do some extra prompting to help them figure out the trip.

The Adventure

The fish hatchery is run by a state Fish and Game Department. Different varieties of trout are raised at the hatchery and then released into the wild. The public is allowed to come visit the hatchery during the daytime hours and view the trout in their pools.

The trout at the front are especially large and incredibly fun to watch and feed. The kids were pretty impressed when we first got there. 

The hatchery has containers of approved fish food (as the trout are on a specific diet) and for 25¢ you can get a good handful. We got several handfuls and visited all the pools, seeing the trout in many different stages of their life cycle. Unfortunately my lens couldn't really capture how incredible the fish were in the pools and ponds or how it looked when we fed them.

We also visited their Visitor's Center which contained information about and specimens of other local animals. This prompted finding some more "F" words including fox, fisher cat, and fur. 

We ended our adventure with a picnic lunch at one of their picnic tables and one more stop at the front pools to feed the biggest fish. 

When we got home we read a great fish story, Jangles: A Big Fish Story by David Shannon. It tells the tale of a mythical trout and tied in perfectly to the large trout we'd seen earlier in the day. 

The Project

When we got home we continued our "F" day by completing our project: F is for ferns. Our backyard is surrounded by ferns. We collected a couple of ferns and used crayons and tracing paper to make fern rubbings. 

We did several, the end results were really pretty! We're planning on hanging the extras in a window. 

Another great part of this adventure was that except for the handful of quarters we spent on fish food, it was FREE. 

A few other F adventure ideas: farm, forest, field, football game, and flower garden.