Ocean Animal Play

 

A few weeks ago we went to the beach and ended up on a section of beach that had tons of shells of all sizes. The teacher/mommy in me was so excited and spent most of the morning filling sand buckets with shells. It was worth it because we now have a wonderful collection of shells that Little Bit can play with.

 

Our next theme will be water, ocean, rivers, ice, rain, etc. I ordered a pack of ocean animals to go with the theme and have been excited to pull them out.  Even though I had not planned to use them yet I decided to setup a ocean play area. To setup I filled the water table with water and added a few shells. Then placed all the ocean animals on Little Bits new buggy board.

 

 

 

We spent some time talking about different animals and if they lived in the water only or lived on land too. Our set of animals had three of each animal and Little Bit decided that all the animals should be with their family. All the animals were put into groups (sharks, fish, whales, etc) by the time we finished. Little Bit used several bowls and cups along with the water table as homes for the animals.

 

 

 

 

There are lots of fun stories about ocean animals, these are a few of the ones that we like.

 

1. The Snail and the Whale by Julia Donaldson, Axel Scheffler

2. A House for Hermit Crab by Eric Carle

3. How Deep is the Sea? by Anna Milbourne

4. Don't Eat the Teacher! by Nick Ward

5. Commotion in the Ocean by Giles Andreae, David Wojtowycz

6. Tickly Octopus by Ruth Galloway