Under the Sea

This month, we're had a beach/ocean theme for our curriculum. We've done several items for this theme, including counting seashells, matching similar beach object worksheets, as well as alphabet worksheets that are beach themed. Three activities, however, definitely stand out in my mind.

The first one was making a sand castle. I took an assortment of toilet paper and paper towel rolls, and had the kids paint them with glue. I had poured some sand onto a large plate, then we rolled the tubes in the sand. After letting the tubes dry, the idea was to put the tubes together to make a sand castle. The kids were really excited about it, and although it didn't turn out exactly as planned, they had fun with it.

The second activity was entitled ocean pictures. I had printed off several pictures of ocean animals for the kids to color. They each selected a couple of pictures, then colored the animal. Once they were finished coloring, I mixed blue food coloring with water, which they used to paint on the paper. After they finished painting, I had them sprinkle salt onto the picture to give it a neat effect!

The third activity was my personal favorite. I had read about this one online, but gave it my own spin. I took several 20 oz Coke bottles, took the labels off and washed them. After they dried, I poured brown craft sand in the bottle. The kids each selected some shells they wanted in their bottle, then we added those. I took blue and green food coloring and mixed it with water. When it was the color that they wanted, I added it to the sand and shells. The result: a bottled ocean! They absolutely loved these and wanted to play with them for the rest of the day. I also noticed when I came in two days later that three other classrooms had done the same project after seeing my class!