Literature   

Look Out for the Big Bad Fish ~ Sheridan Cain & Tanya Linch

Swimmy ~ Leo Lionni

A House for Hermit Crab ~ Eric Carle

The Magic School Bus on the Ocean Floor ~ Joanna Cole

Going on a Whale Hunt ~ Bruce McMillian

Creatures of the Sea ~ John Christopher Fine

Monster of the Sea ~ Rita Golden Gelman

Fish is Fish ~ Leo Lionni

True Book of Oceans ~ K. J. Carter

Benji's Boat Trip ~ M. B. Graham

I Can Be An Oceanographer ~ P. P. Sipiera

Sand Cake ~ Frank Asch

Why the Tides  Ebb and Flow ~ Joan Chase Bowden

My Visit to the Aquarium ~ Aliki

The Seashore Noisy Book ~ Margaret Wise Brown

I  Wonder Why Fish Don't Drown ~  Annabelle Donati

Discovering Seashells ~ Douglas Florian

Albert the Albatross ~ Syd Hoff

Sammy the Seal ~ Syd Hoff

Walpole ~ Syd Hoff

Grandma and the Pirates ~ David Lloyd

Is This a House for Hermit Crab? ~ Megan McDonald

The Rainbow Fish ~ Marcus Pfister

Baby Beluga ~ Raffi

Henry and Mudge and the Forever Sea~ Cynthia Rylant

Activities    

  1.   What a treasure.... Turn a whole box of pennies into a treasure chest.  Make a set of cards with all kinds of activities using pennies, everything from money problems to estimating. 

  2.   Shell sorting....   Display a collection of seashells in a corner of your room.  Decorate with beach towel, bucket, sunglasses, etc.  Students visit and separate the shells into "secret" groups.  They have a friend try to guess how they have sorted the shells.

  3.  Acoustic Poems...  write Dolphin on the board.  Have your class brainstorm words that begin with each letter.  Brainstorm some sample sentences with these words.  After making a class poem,  have each student chose an ocean noun and write their poem.

   4.  Layers of the ocean floor...  gather sand, rocks, shells, and pebbles.  Let the children take turns adding equal amounts of each to jar with a lid.  Fill the rest of the jar up with water.  Take turns shaking the jar.  Place the jar in a quiet place for one day.  Then the children can observe the jar and write down the layers. 

   5.  Saltwater paintings...  Mix 1/4 cup of warm water with 6 tsp. salt and 3 drops of food coloring in each jar.  Paint pictures on white construction paper.  Let dry.  The water evaporates, but the colored salt remains, creating  beautiful pictures. 

   6.   Thumbprint Fish...  Run off an outline of a fish bowl.  Let the children make thumbprints with ink pad inside fish bowl several times.  Using different colors of ink looks best.  Using makers or colored pencils, draw tail, fins ,eyes, etc. to create fish from each thumbprint.  The children can add seaweed and ocean plants to their pictures.  I have tape saran wrap  over the bowl   to make it look like glass.  They turn out very cute.

   7.   Scenic Silhouette  Beaches....  Take a piece of white construction paper and have the children paint a sunset with water colors.  Take a piece of black construction paper the same size and draw a one inch border around all edges.  Cut out the inside of the black paper and glue on top of picture.  Make some beach  templates  of a palm tree, waves, boat, etc.  Let the children trace these on black construction paper.  Then glue these silhouettes on the top of sunset.