Ocean Unit
Language
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Books:
o Rainbow Fish
o Swimmy
o Fish is Fish
o A House for Hermit Crab: use props and retell story
o What Lives in a Shell?
o
Chart Story:
o Hermie the hermit crab finds a new home
o My favorite ocean animal is ____.
o What would you pack to go to the beach?
o If I were a shark, I would ______.
Fill a beach bag with things that start with /b/
Toss a beach ball, tell the student a letter, the student tells letter sound
and tosses the ball back
Ocean rhyme:
Catch a floater, catch an eel,
Catch a lazy whale,
Catch an oyster by the heel
And put him in a pail.
Class Book: Take pictures of students wearing sunglasses. Then write
“Our summer plans…”
Ocean Rhymes: pick an ocean animal, put it with two other words, one
that rhymes and one that doesn’t (ex: whale, tail, shoe) pick the word
that doesn’t rhyme
Fingerplay
Five little fishies swimming in the sea
Teasing MR. Shark you can’t catch me!
Along came Mr. Shark as quiet as can be,
And snapped that fish right out of the sea!
(continue counting down)
Take beach towels outside, pretend to be at the beach, discuss what we
would see, hear, smell, etc…
Tongue Twister: Silly Sally sells seashells down by the seashore.
Who caught a fish from the big blue sea? (same as “Who stole the cookie
from the cookie jar?”)
Math
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Goldfish activities:
o Make patterns using goldfish
o Sort colorful goldfish
o Positional words
o Bingo
o Grid game (see prekinders.com)
 To play a grid game, children roll a game die, identify the
numeral and count out that amount of manipulatives. Each
manipulative is placed over one picture in the grid.
Children play until the whole grid is full. This grid game
uses goldfish or mini seashells which can be purchased in
a bag at craft stores, or collect your own on the beach.
o Count goldfish into egg cartons with numbers in the bottom of
compartments
o Small group stories: EX: Once upon a time there were 2 fish
swimming in the sea. (put 2 fish on mat) Then 3 more fish came
along but a shark ate one. Count, discuss.
Seashell activities:
o Sort seashells by type
o Put seashells in order from smallest to largest
o Roll dice and count seashells into a pail, take turns until pail is
full
o Estimate how many shells in a pail
o Measure how long something is using seashells
Magnetic fishing game: cut out fish with numbers and magnets, use a
pole with a magnet on the end of a line to catch a certain numbered
fish
Put beach balls into order by size
Cut green yarn, pretend it is seaweed, measure items
Catching Fish:
o Combine goldfish & popcorn in a fish bowl. Have children scoop
up with a fish net & separate the fish from the popcorn. Count,
compare, graph, etc…
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Fish Flop – Math
o Children use spray-painted beans (one side yellow, one side blue)
as pretend fish. Ten fish are placed in each child's cup. The
children dump the cup onto the table and count to see how many
fish flopped on the blue side and how many flopped on the
yellow side.
Have fish counters in a jar or fish bowl and have children estimate
how many are in the jar.
Gross & Fine Motor
Crab walk: then try carrying things such as bean bags while they walk
Press seashells in play dough
Stuff old socks with beans, decorate so them so that they look like
fish, and tie with a rubber band. Toss the “fish” into the pail.
Ocean Tag: One person is the shark and everyone else is the fish. The
shark tries to tag every fish. If you get tagged by the fish, you are
frozen. The last fish frozen gets to be the shark.
Practice swimming all the different styles: backstroke, doggie paddle,
breast stroke, butterfly
Cut out pictures of things that you see in the summer and make a
collage or class book
Play catch with water balloons
Parachute activity using beach ball
Volley ball using beach ball
Instead of duck, duck, goose…play fish, fish, shark
Feed the Shark: make a big shark mouth with a hole on the side of a
box…have children throw bean bags through the shark’s mouth and
count how many
Fish lacing cards
Sea Shell Prints- Fine Motor
Children use seashells in the play dough area to press into the play
dough to make prints. You can do the same activity using selfhardening clay and the children can keep them
Music
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Down By the Bay
Baby Beluga (Raffi)
Under the Sea (Little Mermaid)
5 Little Fishies
Baby Fish (Dr. Jean Silly Songs)
Have You Ever Been A’ Fishin’?
A Fishing We Will Go (tune of Farmer in the Dell)
A fishing we will go
A fishing we will go
We’ll have some fun
Playing in the sun
A fishing we will go
A fishing we will go
A fishing we will go
Oh how I wish
To catch a fish
A fishing we will go
The fish go swimming one by one, hoorah, hoorah (continue counting
using the same rhymes as the ants go marching)
When the Fish Go Swimming By (tune of When the Saints Go
Marching In)
Oh when the fish go swimming by.
Oh when the fish go swimming by.
I’ll be on the shore watching closely
When the fish go swimming by.
(repeat using other ocean animals)
I’m a Little Fishy (tune of I’m a Little Tea Pot)
I’m a little fishy, watch me swim
Here is my tail, here is my fin
When I want to have fun with my friends,
I wiggle my tail and dive right in!
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8 Little Tentacles (tune of 10 Little Indians)
1 little, 2 little, 3 little tentacles
4 little, 5 little, 6 little tentacles
7 little, 8, yes 8 little tentacles
On an octopus!!!
The Sea Song (tune of Wheels on the Bus)
The sharks in the sea go chomp, chomp, chomp
Chomp, chomp, chomp
Chomp, chomp, chomp
The sharks in the sea go chomp, chomp, chomp
All through the day
The fish in the sea go swim, swim, swim…
The lobsters in the sea go pinch, pinch, pinch…
The octopus in the sea go wiggle, wiggle, wiggle…
The seahorse in the sea rocks back and forth, back and forth…
The whale in the sea goes squirt, squirt, squirt…
The clams in the sea go open and shut, open and shut…
The crabs in the sea go click, click, click
The jelly fish in the sea go bloop, bloop, bloop…
Social Studies & Science
Wave Bottles: Children use a funnel to pour a cup full of baby oil (or
cooking oil) into a clear plastic bottle. They fill the bottle the rest of
the way with water. Give the liquid a chance to settle, then add a few
drops of blue food coloring. Add plastic "fish" (sequins), and make
waves by turning the bottle sideways and rocking it gently.
Octopus bubbles:
Pour ½ glass of pineapple juice
Add club soda
Stir
Drink!
Observe and describe various sea shells
Making bubbles using straws, pie pans, soap and water
Sink & float: fill a tub or sensory table with water predict and then
test what will sink or float. Use tap water and salt water and compare
what will float or sink.
Jell-O fish: make jell-o and use fish cookie cutters
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Discuss weather in the summer
Tasting tuna
Discuss all the places a fish lives: lake, ocean, tank, aquarium
Look at the oceans on a globe, discuss that there is more ocean than
land
Journal about where they might go on a family vacation
Discuss what a marine biologist does (add to dramatic play)
Shark Hunt – Science
1. Sharks have excellent sense of hearing. Two or three timers are
set and hidden in the room. Children use their sense of hearing,
like a shark would, to find the timer before it goes off. -- From
Totline Exploring Water
Art
Tissue paper rainbow fish: glue scraps of tissue paper onto fish shape,
add a shiny sequin for the rainbow scale
Jelly fish: put hair gel into a Ziploc bag, add eyes and streamers
Make a mobile of animals under the sea
Use fish shaped sponges to create under the sea pictures
Sea Salt Art: The children mix their own salt paint, and then paint a
picture of an ocean animal.
Salt paint recipe:
2 tsp. Salt
1 tsp. Liquid starch
Few drops of food coloring Mix ingredients together. The salt gives a
frosted or sandy appearance to the paint.
Wax Resist: Children draw an ocean scene or one ocean animal with
crayons. They paint over the whole paper with blue watercolor paint to
create the water. The wax in the crayons resists the water, so the
picture shows through the paint.
Make handprint ocean animals
Make a starfish using cheerios, talk about all the tiny things on the
bottom of their tentacles and how they might be used
Colored Tape Fish- Art
o Children trace and cut a fish out of paper. They tear off pieces
of colored masking tape and stick them on for the fish's gills.
Then, they glue on a wiggle eye.
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Fish Tank
o Use a take out box & cut out the inside square. Cover with clear
wrap & put fish inside to look like a fish tank.
Ocean Websites
Under the Sea
PreK Pages - Ocean
Under the Sea by Victoria Smith