Under the Sea Adventure
These are some ideas and activities to use with the theme of the ocean. I have collected them over the years from many different sources. If you have an idea you'd like to share, I'll gladly give you credit for it. Email me
1) Draw several fish, plant life, and other sea creatures with crayons on white construction paper. (color darkly) Using watercolor paints, paint over the entire picture to make an underwater scene. The crayon picture will show through.
2) Watch Disney's Little Mermaid movie. Discuss the underwater life and about mermaids.
3) In your sand table or a pool full of sand, hide several shells, clams, and starfish. Have a sand treasure hunt to find them using shovels and sifters or your fingers.
3a) from Louise Fitz-Coy
Have the students graph their findings.
4) Go fishing!! Tie magents onto a long piece of string. These are your fishing rods. Make several construction paper shaped fish and place a paper clip on the mouth of each fish. (I also laminated mine for strength) Spread them out on the floor or a plastic pool. Use the fishing rods and go fishing!! When making the fish I used different colors to enhance learning of colors and also added a letter to each. Older children can spell words with the fish they catch.
5) Set up an aquarium in your classroom. The children enjoy caring for them. I highly recommend it and it's all tax deductable too!
6) Snack ideas: enjoy tuna fish sandwiches or tuna on crackers.
The food truck that I buy from, carries fish sticks shaped as fish, sharks, and starfish - cute!!
Shell Macaroni for a hotdish or salad.
7) I ordered shell bracelets and necklaces from Oriental Trading Company for a luau party my hubby and I had. Now the kids use them. Those that fell apart the kids use as counters, making pictures, and sorting. Also could use these in the sand table on your treasure hunt.
8) Make a medium size fish shape out of tagboard. Give each child a sheet of wax paper and crayon shavings (do ahead of time) to sprinkle on. The kids can sprinkle any and all colors onto the wax paper. When they are done, add a black circle for an eye. Put another sheet of wax paper on top of theirs and with an iron on low setting, press down for a few seconds melting the crayon shavings. Later, trace the fish shape and cut out. Beautiful colored fish to hang from the ceiling or in a window.
9) Using that same fish stencil pattern, this project can be done by even the youngest preschoolers. Trace the fish pattern onto contact paper. Give the children scraps of tissue paper to stick on their fish. Add another piece of contact paper on top, making sure all the first sheet is covered. Trim around the edges to make them even. This can also be hung from the ceiling or a window.
10) Walnut Shell Fishies
Need 2 walnut shell halves for each child. Have the children cut out a fish shape from felt or paper.Click for pattern. Place the shells on either side to make the body. Glue into place with craft glue. Add a wiggly eye on each side. Variation: Glue only one shell on and a magent on the other side for a refrigerator decoration.
11) Whale pattern
12) Collect large shells if possible to "listen to the ocean!!"
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Newly added in '99...
13) submitted by Sandy
You will need a hula hoop for each child and the music "Under the Sea" from The Little Mermaid. Place the hoops on the floor in a large area. These are the boats. Play the music and the children pretend to swim around the hoops when the music stops everyone finds a boat. Remove a boat each time the music starts. Like musical chairs. It's such fun for the kids to pile into only a few boats. I have 15 children in my preschool class so we usually leave at least 2 boats. Enjoy the children sure do this activity.
The next several ideas were sent to me by Shirley in TX. Some are from Carson-Dellosa Publishing and some are from "The Toddler Calendar by Denison and Co. Inc.(all their books are WONDERFUL!!) Thanks!!
14) A Crabpattern can be used several different ways. For a bulletin board display is one idea. Another is to cut out the pattern after it's been copied onto red cardstock paper or leave it on white and color him red. After cutting him out, glue it onto a blue piece of tagboard(posterboard). Let the children brush glue on him and sprinkle clean fine sand all over him. Try to keep the eyes free from sand and then color them black with a marker.
15) Sorting. Provide a baking pan or dishwashing pan full of sand and filled with shells. After the children pretend to collect seashells from the shore, let them sort the shells according to size, type or color.
16) Read "A House for Hermit Crab" by E. Carle.
17) When studying the letter "O", make a large letter "O" out of heavy grey paper. Have the children add two large eyes at the top of the "O" and then accordian-style fold eight grey legs to attach near the bottom of the "O". "O" is for Octopus!
18) Flannelboard or Poem. If some patterns can be found to match, this would be a cute flannelboard story.
Five little sea animals
Washed up on the shore;
The crab scurried to the side
Then there were four.
Four little sea animals
Going back to the sea;
The starfish stopped to munch a bit,
Then there were three.
Three little sea animals
in the ocean blue;
The octopus zipped away,
And then there were two.
Two little sea animals
Swimming and having fun;
The seahorse went back home,
Then there was one.
One little sea animal
Glad to be alive;
Decide to swim away,
And look for a place to hide!
By Gail Nettles & C.D. Publ.
19) Have the children draw with markers or crayons an ocean scene. Then have them glue goldfish crackers (any number of their choice) onto the paper. They must count them and tell you how many they have in their ocean.
20) Sea in a Bottle. Mix rubbing alcohol, blue food coloring and turpentine into a clear two liter pop bottle. It will create an amazing likeness of rolling ocean waves. Make sure the cover is hot glued on and do not let them handle the liquids. When finished with it, do not dump it down the drain, take it to the proper disposal station in your area.
20a) From Patsy.....
For the colored water in the bottle listed above, instead of turpentine, which is dangerous around kids, try: water and oil, color the oil with oil paint from an artist supply store. This lasts longer. Seal bottle or jar tightly and then tape or glue lid on.
21) Make an Octopus Puppet. Paint a large paper plate a color of choice. When dry, cut off the bottom 1/4 of it straight across. (Save that piece to glue as a handle on the back for a puppet) Cut 8 strips of paper (any color) to use for the legs and glue them on the unpainted side of the plate. Use a pencil or something a little thicker to roll the leg strips a bit to make them curl slightly. Add eyes, nose and mouth and any other decorations onto the face and eyes.
22) Shiny Starfish - from Sherry.
I cut starfish (with rounded points) out of posterboard and drew black eyes and a smile on each one. We mixed up a syrup of sugar and water--added food coloring so that we had about 4 colors from which they could choose. They painted the starfish with the syrup and let it dry to make a colorful shiny startfish which we used in a bulletin board display.
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Added 12-2-99
23) Clams
(cup hands to make a clam shape)
Open them, shut them (open and shut as a clam)
Open them, shut them (same)
Clams are so much fun (open and then shut tight on the word "fun")
Open them, shut them (same)
Open them, shut them(same)
Lay them in the sun (lay hands open on the floor)
24) Crabs are Crabby
(sung to Fre're Jacques)
Crabs are crabby
Oh so crabby
Don't you get too close
Don't you get too close
Watch out for his pinchers (pinch thumb and pointer finger in pinching motion)
Watch out for his pinchers (same)
They will hurt!
Yes, they'll hurt!
25) Waves
Fill a small plastic jar 2/3 full of water. Add 8-10 drops of blue food coloring. Then fill the rest of it with mineral oil eliminating as many air bubbles as possible. Seal lid tightly. Turn the jar horizontally and tip back and forth making waves!!
26) Seaweed
Soak a piece of string in green paint. After letting it drip for a couple seconds, lay it on a blue piece of construction paper with a piece of it hanging off the top end of the paper. Place a second piece of blue paper on top of it.
Gently place one hand on top of the second sheet while pulling the string out from in between the papers. Repeat again if desired. When dry, your sheets will look like an underwater scene with seaweed. Add paper fish, stickers, goldfish crackers, or anything else you can think of.
27) Lunch idea
Serve a hotdish with "shell" noodles. Also serve a lettuce salad and call it "seaweed delight".
28) Do the "Crab Walk"!!!!
29) Suggested Reading:
Alphabet Sea by C. Spencer
A B Sea by B. Kalman
Herman the Helper by R. Kraus
Big, Big Sea by M. Waddell
My Very Own Octopus by B. Most
How to Hide an Octopus and Other Sea Creatures by R. Heller
Big Al by A Clements
Clifford Saves the Whales by Josephine Page
Sea, Sand, Me! by Patricia Hubbell
Seahorse Reef : A Story of the South Pacific by Sally M. Walker
Commotion in the Ocean by Giles Andreae
This Is the Ocean by Kersten Hamilton
30)Idea from Brandi Marshall, Stockton,CA
Take an empty 2 liter soda bottle and fill it halfway with water and add a little blue food coloring. Then take a blue balloon and puff in a few breaths and draw a face on it. Stuff the balloon in the bottle , turn sideways and you have Baby Beluga! Be sure to sing the song. My students have always enjoyed it.
31) From Louise Fitz-Coy
Make a whale that is larger than your school....Invite the local newspaper, or send in a picture.
32)From Louise Fitz-Coy
Make a huge fish with numerous scales...Have each student paint or color scales. Students sign their scales.( Use for bulletin board)
33) From Louise Fitz-Coy
Make an UNDER THE SEA class big book... Same idea as Brown Bear.... ------------------ (name of child), What do you see? I see a -----------------(name of water life) looking at me.
34) From Patsy...
I do a curriculum that I teach also as a workshop for conferences - Oceans of Fun. We turn the basement day care into an ocean with sheets over everything to make coral reefs that have octopus made out of yarn, as well as fish we have pictures of or make. we have crab and other lobster claws and parts we have washed, as well as lots of shells. We make a treasure chest as well as nets and a bottle with secret messages in. Then we put on our masks made from plastic eye protectors from the tool area, and 20 oz soda bottles washed out with clear tubing from our local science store which we tape into the bottle neck with duck tape. Make sure the loop of tubing is large enough to go over the kids heads and not tight on neck. For the larger kids like me we use larger soda bottles etc. We then turn off the lights and turn on our flash lights and go scuba fish hunting. We learn and have fun. When we are done downstairs we go into the kitchen and cook all kinds of sea food and try out some of it. Then we go into the other room and take out our microscopes and see what pieces of the shells and other parts of the fishes and other things I have purchased at the local food store. Some of the fish parts we don't cook we just feel and look and study them.
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newly added in 2001......
35) From Fran Calahan, Special Education at Del Cerro School in Mission Viejo,CA
We made ocean sea scapes by pouring a small amount of liquid starch on the children's desk or table. Add a few drops of blue and green tempera paint. Let them smear away and finger paint right on their desks using the sides of their hands for seaweed , making waves etc. Next take a large sheet of white paper and press over their painting. Lift carefully. The colors come out beautifully. Add sand to the ocean bottom, stickers or stencil draw fish. We added mermaids and scuba divers with the children's class pictures for the heads.
36) "Discovery Jar" from Deb B.
I placed clean sand in a medium-size jar. Then added various "ocean discoveries": small plastic lobster, crab, eel, starfish, real, but tiny sea shells of various kinds, & small colored river rocks. The lid was sealed with hot glue. The children enjoy holding & rolling the jar in their hands as the "ocean discoveries" appear and disappear.
37) Idea from Tammy
Mix Elmer's school glue, fingerpaint, sand and a little water together to make a rough paint. Next give each child a starfish pattern and let them paint with the mixture. When it dries it leaves a rough surface.
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newly added in 2002
38) From Pam....
For back to school night, I had seaweed out for our parents to taste. (In California, you can get seaweed in the oriental section of our markets. Japanese people use it for sushi.) Our children tasted it that day. We graphed the results, like/didn't like by the parents signing in the column for his/her preference. We were surprise that most people like it!
We talked about what comes from the ocean (toothpaste, cosmetics, seafood, etc.) I showed the students examples of each item, too.
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