Oceans

This was a short theme, but I think one of the kids' favorites so far! We had 1 day spent on our field trip to Seaquest (thanks to a great preschool mom for getting us passes!), and then another short week because of Thanksgiving. Here's the fun things we did:

Dramatic Play

An ocean! And beach!




It changed a bit each day. The first day, we had the blue blanket for the ocean with lots of big and small ocean animal toys. There were beach towels, floaties and goggles for kids on the beach. The highlight is the sensory table with kinetic sand and seashells.


The next day, I added a few more dress-ups.


The last day, my son had requested pirates, since pirates sail on the ocean, so I added pirate costumes and a treasure chest. They had a lot of fun with it! Also, the small ocean animals were now in the water on the art table, but we happened to find another awesome bag of ocean animals at the store this weekend, that had a few animals we didn't have yet. So, more ocean animal fun!






I think my favorite part of their play at this center this week was wanting to learn all about the animals they were playing with. They wanted to know their names, what they ate, etc. So we spent a lot of time checking out the reading center to find books about their favorite ocean animals, so they could learn more about them.

Blocks

The sensory table was in the block area, but we had all these fun ocean-themed puzzles and games too! They're really starting to like puzzles and get them out often.

Art

I forgot a picture, but I have seashell rubbing plates they used the first day, before we left on the field trip.

Ocean animal sponge painting


Tub of water with toy fish


Small manipulatives

Folder game and book


Ocean animal lacing cards

Flat marble animal pictures from totschooling


Magnet board



Writing table

Ocean stickers


Ocean stamps
I made these with foam stickers and milk lids and they've held up great for 6 years now!


Snack

We had Jello from ocean animal molds, with some blue "ocean" Jello

Of course, Goldfish crackers!

Large Group

Our song was 5 Little Crabs from Dr. Jean. We focused on the counting and numeral recognition.

Our word was ocean and we talked about the difference between oceans and lakes on our big world map.

Day 1 was our field trip to Seaquest aquarium.

Day 2 we chose ocean animals from dramatic play and sorted them by their beginning sound. This is new to them, so I was really focusing on them isolating that first sound and hearing what their animal started with. Then I'd tell them which letter card it went by that makes that sound.


Day 3 we read Rainbow Fish and made our own Rainbow Fish by gluing sequins on a fish picture.

Small Group

Week 1, my group played an ocean treasures counting game. The other group played ocean dominoes.

Week 2, my group worked on counting and putting our ocean 1-10 puzzles together, while the other group drew their favorite ocean animal in their journals.