Oo Ocean Odyssey
Letter: Oo
Number: 15
Ocean Odyssey will be such a fun and exciting unit to participate in. The children will learn about the oceans and locate them on a globe, they will make a compass, make an ocean in a bottle, hear the story The Rainbow Fish with a special Rainbow Fish
activity. They will make a window aquarium using tissue paper and cut outs, they will also make an aquarium in a bottle. There are directions for making sand dough, a fishing game, and a helping hand octopus. They will have fun making pixy stick or
colored sand art activities, singing songs, playing games and more. The packet also covers the Letter O, number 15 and a few match and memory games.
Letter and Number Activities:
Make a large letter O out of heavy paper. Have the child add two large eyes at the top of the O and then accordion-style fold eight legs to attach near the bottom of the O. O is for Octopus!
My Octopus Lives In The Ocean (tune: My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean)
Sing My Octopus lives in the Ocean Have the children stand up every time you sing a word that begins with the letter O. (octopus, ocean).
Words:
My octopus lives in the ocean
My octopus lives in the sea
My octopus lives in the ocean
Just go to the ocean and see, and see.
Just go to the ocean and see.
Count 15 sea shells in a container.
Give the child 15 seashells of various types. Have them place their shells in order by smallest to largest.
Decorate the Room Like An Ocean
Hang a fishing net over a blue background, put large plastic sea animals in the net.
Make an ocean back drop. Use a large white sheet - hang it in one layer on the clothes line. Fill a few spray bottles with water mixed with food coloring, or water mixed with fabric dye in different shades of blue, green, and purple. Have the children
spray the sheet, let it dry. Hang it up on a wall inside and hang starfish and ocean creatures on it. The colors should bleed together and give a tye dye effect.
Variation: for seaweed look alike.
Soak a piece of string in thinned green paint. Let it drip for a few seconds and lay it on a blue piece of paper with a little tail of it hanging off the end of the paper. Place a second piece of blue paper on top of it. Place one hand on top of the
second sheet and gently pull the string out from in between the papers. Repeat , when dry, your sheets will look like an underwater scene with seaweed.
Cover a picture window with light blue tissue paper, add cut out and decorated fish and sea life creatures to it. There are several ways in which to decorate sea creatures in this packet. Add layers of the ocean, sandpaper at the bottom, green yarn for
seaweed, etc.
Cut sea life shapes from the pattern sheets, let children paint two matching shapes, stuff with newspaper strips, staple together, and hang with fishing line from ceiling. Add blue and green streamers to ceiling for an under the ocean effect.
Hands On Activities
What Do You Know?
Ask the children to tell you what they already know about the ocean. Accept all answers. Find out if any of them have been to an ocean and what their experience was.
Helping Hands
Draw an octopus body with long arms (one for each child), trace and cut out each child’s hand and put their name on it. Place a hand at the end of each octopus’s arm. Choose one name per day to be a helping hand.
Have a helping hands octopus showing all the class helpers for the week, i.e. line leader, office messenger, board eraser, etc.
Paper Mache Fish
Use a large round balloon, fill it with air and tie closed. Mix water and liquid starch (or your favorite paper mache recipe) in a large sauce pan, stir over low heat until mixture is sticky. Tear newspaper into strips that are easy to handle. Dip them
in the starch mixture, pull through two fingers to squeeze off excess starch and apply to the balloon. Repeat until the balloon is completely covered with a few layers. Allow to dry by hanging over a tub or on the clothes line. Paint the fish and apply
glitter and sequins for the scales. Add poster board fins and tails.
Variation:
Use colored tissue paper instead of newspaper.
Make a Beach
Place sand in the sensory table or a small wading pool (put one end on bricks to make it a little higher). Add water to the low end, a few sea shells and a few small buckets and shovels.
Ocean Goldfish Bowl
Have the children cut a fish bowl shape and paint it like an ocean. Glue goldfish crackers on the bowl.
Make a Collage
Cut pictures from magazines that have pictures of the ocean and glue them on a large piece of poster board.
Ocean Fun
Place various plastic fish and underwater animals in water in a sensory table or small wading pool. Add rocks, small boats, shells, objects that might be used for tunnels for the fish. You can add sand at the bottom to give the feeling of the bottom of
the ocean. Adding plastic plants also makes it more life like.
Make Real Ocean Waves
Fill a small plastic jar 2/3 full of water. Add 8 drops of blue food coloring. 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!!
Variation:
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. Hot glue the lid 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.
Ocean In A Bag
Squirt blue gel toothpaste in a zip lock bag. Squish it around & push the air out. Close the bag & put ocean life stickers on the outside of the bag.
Ocean In A Bottle
Use empty plastic bottles with screw on lids or large baby food jars. Put in sand (from sandbox), add water and color it blue with food coloring then add small shells and little plastic fish. Put the lids back on and tape them shut. Tip the bottles back
and forth to see the fish and shells.
Sand Art
Have the children fill baby food jars with different colors of Pixy Stix. A great treat. You will probably want to use the smallest size jars or you will need a lot of pixie stix.
Variation:
Color white sand using food coloring, allow to dry on newspaper. Using plastic spoons, funnels, and craft sticks fill the jar up with different colors, make a neat pattern. Be sure to fill them all the way to the top because the sand will settle. Glue
seashells to the lid and hot-glue the lid on.
Salt Water
Let a glass of salt water and glass of regular water sit until they evaporate. Observe what is left behind. Find out how salt gets in the ocean.
Ocean Pearls
In Japan pearls are known as The Gift of kings, go to a local fish market and buy a few oysters. Open them up so the children can see what they look like inside. Explain to them how nature takes a small grain of sand in the oysters shell and over time it
grows in to a iridescent pearl. Have a pearl necklace or some loose pearls the children can observe.
Sea Shell Necklace
Using a variety of sea shells, drill holes in the ope of each one. Have the child string them on a piece of yarn to make a necklace.
Sea Shell Picture Frame
Use small picture frames (make sure they are sturdy) glue small sea shells around the frames.
Ocean Picture
On a piece of poster board or cardboard, paint the ocean blue and the sky a light blue or white. Make a beach by spreading glue at the bottom of the page with a paint brush and sprinkling sand over it. Glue sea shells on the sand and put ocean creature
stickers in the ocean.
Paper Plate Jelly Fish
Use a paper plate, cut the inside portion out so only the rim is left. Cut numerous strips of tissue paper, crepe paper and or curling ribbon. Glue the ends to the bottom of the paper plate, hang from the ceiling.
Go Fish
Tie magnets onto a long piece of string that is attached to short dowel to make a fishing pole. Cut out several construction paper shaped fish and place a paper clip on the mouth of each one. Spread the fish on the floor or a plastic pool. Use the
fishing rods and go fishing.
Sand Dough
4 cups clean sand, 3 cups flour, 1/4 cup vegetable oil, 1 cup water. Mix sand and flour. Add oil and water. If needed add more water for desired texture.
Make A Starfish
Cut out starfish from construction paper, have the children glue on shredded wheat.
Variation:
Cut star fish from poster board, with a paint brush, cover the shape with glue, sprinkle sand over the entire area and let dry. Shake off excess sand.
Have the children glue on cheerios for the suction cups that are found on real starfish.
Rainbow Fish (several different ideas)
Read the children the story Rainbow Fish (the movie is also available). After reading discuss the importance of being a good friend and what it means. Have the children cut out a fish pattern from poster board and use markers to color the fish on both
sides. Hang the fish in the room for a colorful ocean look.
Variation:
Mix food coloring with a bubble solution (bought or made) have the kids blow colored bubbles onto a fish shape cut from white poster board.
Variatio:
Have each child sprinkle crayon shavings over a piece of waxed paper, lay a white tag board fish cut out over the shavings. Lay another sheet of waxed paper over the cut out and iron on low, the shavings will melt into a beautiful rainbow design. Cut out
and hang from the ceiling. This works best if you use light and bright colors (no dark blues, brown or blacks.
Paper Plate Flying Fish
Staple two paper plates with the insides together so the plate bottoms are on the outside. Leave about a 6inch area open. With 2 additional paper plates cut 1 wedge from each, staple one to each side of the open hole of the paper plate. Curve outward,
staple or glue shut. You will have a flying fish.
Variation:
Leave the tail area open so your hand fits inside. Be sure to decorate the fish with watercolors, sequins, glitter and or markers.
Bulletin Board Idea
Place numerous ocean creature shapes on the bulletin board. Write a question about each one on the front. On separate pieces of paper write the correct answer. Attach a string from the ocean creature to the correct answer.
Riddles
I have eight arms and can change colors and swim backwards (octopus)
I have five arms and if one breaks off i grow another one (starfish)
You can buy me cans in the grocery store, I swim in schools (tuna fish)
I am the largest mammal in the world but I have no teeth (blue whale)
I have a hard shell and two claws, I use my tail to swim (lobster)
Songs
I’m a Little Fishy (tune: I’m a little tea pot)
I’m a little fishy,
See me swim
Here is my tail, and here is my fin,
When I want to have fun with my fishy friends,
I wiggle my tail an dive right in.
Games
Pirate
Pirate sits in a chair in the middle of a circle, blindfolded, with treasure at his feet. Selected child to creep up and try to steal the treasure. If the pirate hears him he must yell out Yo ho ho...and another child is selected.......if treasure is
stolen and child resumes his seat, he yells out instead and becomes the pirate.
Go Fish Game
Make a go fish game. Cut out several different fish and ocean creature patterns. Write a simple question on each on. Example: on the octopus - how many arms do I have? If the child provides the right answer they keep the card, if they guess wrong, the
card goes back. You can do this many ways, turn the cards upside down and choose one, use the fishing pole magnet ideas earlier in this packet, or make up your own way.
Fingerplays
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)
Poems
Five little fishes
Five little fishes swimming in the sea, teasing Mr. Shark
bet you can’t catch me.
Well along came Mr. Shark as quiet as he could be
And he SNAPPED that fish right out of the sea.
Snacks
Blue jello in paper cups with gummi fish ?
Snack mix with goldfish crackers ?
Tuna Fish, shrimp, visit your local fish market and have the children try something new like shark.