Each week, aside from our regular subjects (Language Arts, Math, Handwriting, etc.) I like to pick a themed study. I choose something that I know will interest my kids or that coincide with holidays/events. Throughout the week we do extra activities, games and art/crafts that go with our theme.
Ocean week was a favorite. My kids LOVE the beach and the ocean so I knew this unit would be of great interest to them. Plus, there are a million directions/ideas you could do with the broad subject of the ocean.
Since we are just doing preschool/Kindergarten activities, I kept it fairly light with how deep we cover topics. When they get older we will cover more and in greater depth. I’m really excited to use The Good and The Beautiful’s Marine Biology science curriculum one day. It has great information, beautiful photos/flash cards and great hands on activities. TGATB Science Unit-Marine Biology
Here are some of our activities from Our Ocean Week:
We started the week off with some imaginative play. I set up this baking sheet with sand, blue pebbles (found at the dollar store or craft store), and toy ocean animals. It was a HUGE hit and my kids played with it constantly throughout the week. Super simple, but generates many hours of creative, imaginative play.
We painted Puffer fish with spikey balls and forks. Watched some YouTube videos and played the game Blowfish Blowup.
These fun printable activities are from Let’s Play School- Ocean Activity Pack. Lets Play School- Etsy
Jellyfish- We colored paper plates cut in half and crinkled crate paper for their tentacles. These were my favorite, they turned out so cute!
Fish- We went fishing for alphabet fish. Each fish has an alphabet letter, when they caught a fish they had to tell me what letter it was. Each fish had a paperclip so was able to attach to these magnetic fishing poles from Melissa and Doug.
Melissa & Doug Catch & Count Wooden Fishing Game
We fed the shark fish with numbers on them. I would call out a fish and they would have to find the correct one and feed it to the shark. This shark is from Hobby Lobby (decor from my sons room), but you could just cut out a simple shark head using cardboard or a large poster board. (Fish printables also from Let’s Play School)
We drew and colored fish, then cut them out.
Learned about color mixing by using a dropper to drop blue and yellow watercolor paints together to make a blue/green ocean background.
Starfish- We painted bubble wrap and pressed it onto craft paper to make our starfish.
We also played with kinetic sand, AQUABEADS, puzzles, playdough, read tons of books and watched Finding Nemo for a movie night.
YouTube is such a great resource for homeschool. We watched so many videos on the different animals, coral reef, etc. in the ocean.
Cosmic Kids Yoga is a great YouTube channel where they act out a story through yoga poses and movements. My kids LOVE it, so this week we did the Moana video.
Laurie Berkner also has a fun movement song called “The Goldfish (Lets Go Swimming)” that my kids have played a million times!
We had so much fun learning about the ocean and ocean creatures this week! We hope you get some inspiration and ideas from some of these fun activities and crafts to do with your littles.
One Comment