Ocean Day!

It's Summer! 

I love summer, it is my favorite time of year, but it can get crazy if you don't have a schedule and plans to entertain the children.

Here is our first activity theme day:

OCEAN DAY!

Ocean Jars:
We spent a day learning more about the ocean and the creatures that live there. We made ocean jars, ( you can see it in the top picture, I forgot to get a close up of it) which were filled with several different liquids representing the layers of the ocean. We talked about the light coming through each layer and how deep the ocean is and how it doesn't get light at the bottom. We also labeled the jar with the different layers. We also talked about the liquids we used in jar and how the heavier liquids went to the bottom and how the liquids separated. I loved this learning activity. I will definitely use it in my classroom. I think it would be a good project for a 3rd or 4th grade class. 

We also made crabs and turtles out of seashells. The children loved making these but the learning component was harder to integrate. It was more of a craft project. The same thing was true for the toilet paper octopi, but the children got to be more creative with these. These activities took us about 3 hours to do all of them. Here is the address for the ocean jars: http://www.icanteachmychild.com/make-ocean-zones-jar/. 

Turtle Magnets

Turtle Snacks

We also painted fish with celery. I think this would be a great activity for a preschool or kindergarten class. You could use the activity with a unit on fish or oceans and read the book "The Rainbow Fish" and talk about differences and how everyone is special.

Celery Painting
The kids came up with some pretty cool mixed colors.

  We also made some cute turtle snacks. I think these would be great for preschool or kindergarten. They are a healthy snack to go along with a lesson. The snacks were made from apples, mini chocolate chips, toothpicks, and balls of honey dew, though I suggest using green grapes ( they didn't have any green ones at the store when I went.)

Crab magnets
 The turtles and crabs were made from foam sheets, sea shells, google eyes, hot glue, and paint.

To top off the day we had to watch Disney's Finding Nemo and talk about Dory's good advice to "Just Keep Swimming"