I have a 2 year old daughter and 6 year old son. Many of these activities
work for both of my children- I just increased the expectations for
my six year old.
Bible- Do a search for verses about God's creation of the sea
and sea creatures. You can look in concordance of Bible or go to websites
like Crosswalk.com.
Once your child picks their favorites, you can have them copy the verses
(one per day) for copywork/handwriting practice. We use the Handwriting
Without Tears Paper.
Devotionals- Use My Big Book of 5 Minute Devotions each
morning that you use this unit study. They have wonderful sea creatures
such as dolphins, sea otters, fish, etc. with a brief devotional using
characteristics of the animal. There is also a verse to memorize that
applies to that characteristic/virtue (e.g. Sea Turtles- II Corinthians
4:8 perseverance).
Book1- Sea Shapes, Suse McDonald. Very clever book that
uses shapes to create sea creatures
Activities for book 1:
a) Name shapes covered-star, circle, semicircle, square, heart, triangle,
spiral, fan, oval, diamond, crescent, hexagon- we went ahead and discussed
octagon
b) Cut shapes and make sea creatures to match those in book
c) Nice descriptions of each sea creature in book at the end. Could
copy, cut, and staple into small sea creature book to read alone or
put in a lapbook.
d) Define Mammal
e) List what sea creatures are mammals
f) List characteristics of mammals- air breathing, feed babies milk
Book2- Otter Play- Nancy Luenn
Activities book 2:
1) buddy reading- my son and I took turns reading opposite pages of
this book. It is a delightful description of a little boy observing
an otter. Even though these otters are in a river- not the ocean-it
is worthy of inclusion.
2)vocabulary review- burrow, bank, chitter, loll, oars, frolic, eddy
3) make an eddy in water by swirling water in a bowl gently with a straw.
4)watch the Really Wild Animals video and see how otters get
there food.
5) list the types of food otters like to eat
Book 3 -Splashy Fins, Flashy Fins- Deep Sea Rhymes to Make
You Grin -Copeland and Lewis
Activities book 3:
a) Have child read aloud
b)make vocabulary and/or spelling list of words they don't know
c)read out loud to kids pausing at end of sentence to allow them to
fill in the missing rhyming word. e.g. "...some have a lot of legs.
Some swim around with their bellies full of lots of little _______ (child
should say "eggs!").
d) make list of rhyming words. See if you can come up with a different
rhyming word to make it funny (e.g. instead of eggs in previous example
they could say "full of lots of little legs".
Book 4- Sea Horse, Rebecca Stefoff
Book 4 activities:
a) list all of the different defense mechanisms of sea horses/sea creatures.
b) define predator, prey
c) Pretend one child is a predator and another prey. Let the child who
is prey try to figure our what way to avoid being caught (blend in to
environment (hide, wear same color clothes as wall)
d) compare and contrast how humans and sea horses carry and give birth
to babies
Book 5-Sea Critters, Sylvia H. Earle
Book 5 activities:
This book is a nice simple break down of the classification of sea creatures.
You can read a little about each class and then the back of the book
has a great classification chart that is nice to include in a lapbook.
Book6- A Shark Pup Grows Up- Zollman
Book 6 activities:
a)Have child read or buddy read
b)vocabulary list- gill slit, hatch, pouch, egg case, embryo, pup
c) create life cycle booklet. Copy pages 20-21. Nice description of
each stage of shark life cycle.
d) Sequencing-it's also fun to put each step of the life cycle on flash
cards and let your child put them into the correct order as they tell
you about each step.
Book 7-Crystal:The Story of a Real Baby Whale, Karen Smyth
Book 7 activities:
Read this book out loud to your children. BE AWARE- there is some
mention of evolution and the idea of "Millions" of years-
so you can handle this in a way that coincides with your family's beliefs.
a) Have you child narrate back what they recall after you have finished
reading a page (most pages are the right length for this age). For more
info. on narration check out the Simplycharlottemason.com
website.
b) some of the concepts covered in addition to whale life cycle and
habits- size, weight, seasons, mammals, maps, echolocation, other sea
creature names, and much more.
ADDITIONAL ACTIVITIES:
1) Download diagrams of favorite sea creatures from Enchanted
Learning. Allow your child to label body parts, etc.
2)Nature Notebook- We like to draw pictures of the sea creatures we
study or see. We keep them along with our other nature drawings in a
composition notebook or art notebook. Good chance to have your child
practice writing the scientific name of the animal they found as copywork.
To read more about Nature notebooks you can check out Simplycharlottemason.com
3)Field Trips- We live in Florida so we were able to go to "Gulf
World" where they have sea animal shows and discuss the life cycle
and habits of sea creatures. You could also visit an aquarium or go
to the beach. If you live near the beach you may also be able to participate
in a Sea Turtle Rescue. If you are landlocked- you could call to see
if any banks or doctor's offices have salt water tanks. A pet store
would be sure to have a salt water tank to check out. Also you could
just do a virtual field trip by going to google and typing in "sea
creatures" or the name of your child's favorite sea creature.
4) Flipbook-Have your child cut several sheets of paper into squares
(all the same size). Lay them out on the table left to right. In each
square your child will draw a small picture of a sea creature. The picture
progresses. For instance if they are drawing a dolphin, it will start
in left hand corner in the water and may start to leave the water in
the second picture. By the time you move to the 5th drawing the dolphin
may be pointing down again toward the water and by the last drawing
end up back in the water. After drawings are done, have your child put
the last picture on top of the stack and add them sequentially from
there (backwards (drawing 10, 9, 8, etc). Staple together and then let
them flip it. It will look like a slow motion movie of their dolphin
jumping out of the water. Stiffer paper may work better. Any sea creature
will do.
5) Google "word puzzle" to find resources for creating your
own crosswords and word searches with sea creature names and vocabulary
words.
6)Use the internet! check out Answers
In Genesis website- there is a kid's section with some sea creature
information in it. This website has some very nice stories about God's
creation- I am not sure if the have any sea creatures, but I know they
do have other animal stories so it's a possibility. Wholesome
Words Children's Corner
7) Art- draw an underwater scene by pressing hard with crayons. After
it is finished use watercolors to cover the whole page- paint over crayon
and empty spaces. It will be a keeper!
8) We went to Red Lobster restaurant for my hubby's birthday. A little
sad- if they get it- but we did get to see live lobsters! We also took
our Under the Sea Sticker book and let our son put the sea creature
sticker into the correct place in the book after he read us the caption
about each sea creature.
9) For preschoolers- Go Fish game and goldfish snacks are fun. You can
also make blue jello for the ocean and put PRE-WASHED plastic seas creatures
inside for discovery! I would wait until the jello has cooled a little
before adding them.
Ocean Life Notebooking
Crab
Coral
Reef
Coral Reef with
Diver
Dolphins
Flying
Fish
Jellyfish
Orca
Puffer
Fish
School
of Fish
Seahorse
Sea Turtle
Shark
Ocean Life Coloring
Clown
Fish
Crab
Flying
Fish
Hammerhead
Shark
Jellyfish
Manta
Ray
Puffer
Fish
Sea Horse
Starfish
Sword
Fish
Whale
Disclaimer: All links are for informational purposes
only - a link to a web site does not imply agreement with or endorsement
of that site. Because of the changing nature of the internet, always
preview a site before viewing it with your children.
