OCEAN WEEK: PK-3

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Ana’s Post
For our fourth week of preschool, we focused on the ocean! Between the dollar store and the help of my in-laws who live near the beach, I had plenty of supplies for a great hands-on week with lots of activities! The most successful activities for Aria were playing in a sand box I made with seashells and playing with ocean animals (beads and plastic versions) I bought from Hobby Lobby. At the dollar store, I found a great ocean animals alphabet domino game. While Aria was too young to play it as an actual dominos game, but we were able to talk about ocean animals and letters by using the cards as flash cards. By the end of the week, she remembered x-Ray fish and butterfly fish, among many others. I also bought a dory coloring page and sticker book from the dollar store, which allowed me to fill up some time while I worked on prepping other assignments. We also made our first poster this week, allowing us to practice gluing while also studying terms. Aria loved getting to glue, though I placed the paper on the poster in order to keep it neat.
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We spent a lot of the week in the previously mentioned sandbox, going back and forth between the box and the pool, where Aria played with her ocean animals! Skylar loved playing along with Aria in both. Aria caught on quickly to what the animals were, even going so far as to correct me when I mislabeled a walrus as a manatee! Using some of the leftover dyed pasta from our rainbow activity during the weather week, we made an octopus! This helped Aria work in stringing and colors while also discussing what an octopus is and its number of legs. I printed out and laminated some sea animal puppets, which Aria had my husband play with her. Mostly, the animals just ate each other. One of my favorite activities this week, which required two days, was turning an egg carton into the ocean floor. Aria painted the egg carton blue and after it dried, we glued sand to the bottom and placed fish, ocean critters, and seashell beads (bought at Hobby Lobby) across the floor. Such a fun, simple activity that kept us busy and allowed us to work on painting and gluing.

Great week that could easily be repeated when she is older or any time that we make it down to the beach to visit the grandparents. Hopefully, she will perceive and understand the beach in a different way after this overview!
 
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Jessica Blog
This week our theme was “under the sea” or ocean life. Please note I am trying to include only our most successful projects so you get the best of the best. For every “win” there is also a failure…don’t feel bad if you prep something that sounds great and your kiddo just isn’t interested…I throw a lot of printables right back in the folder to save for when we do this theme again or potential kid #2 every week.

Fortunately teaching a 2.5 yr old you also get a lot of “best day ever” responses to activities.  We had several ongoing ones this week such as sand and marine life sensory tub, underwater dance challenge, habitat worksheet, and q-tip painting. These were all done on a daily basis adding on new animals to each activity. By repeating what she learned the day before and then introducing new characters the activity was still as exciting on Friday as it was Monday. We also had a different “focus” each day.
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For instance, Thursday we read Eric Carle’s “A House For Hermit Crab” several times and discussed the concept of sequencing or order…aka what happened 1st, 2nd etc. Taegan got to decorate her shell (laundry basket) with each item the crab collects as we read the story a second time. On our third go around (space out readings throughout day) she got a worksheet to glue pictures in correct order. At dinner we talked as a family about the sequence of her day.
 
We also made paper plate hermit crabs and watched disney’s “The Little Mermaid” talking about Sebastian the crab. I even gave her a large conch shell and fingerpuppet crab we had on hand to pretend play with. It’s helped us to sift through old toys (happy meal items even) and see which we can make fit into the weekly theme…I’ve been pleasantly surprised with how much of our “junk” comes in handy as we go along.
 
Final item we had great success with this week: including daddy! Taegan is so excited to see him after work each day and share what she’s done we decided he should get to play teacher too! Usually planning one small activity a week is enough for him, this week he was able to do two (and sometimes I literally have to give him a “ready to go” lesson which I prepare)…but regardless it helps engage him with what we are learning and relate better to my daily life as a homeschooling parent. This week he made a bottle wave with T and taught her about sink vs float using a clear plastic tote and random objects picked up in the yard.