In the two weeks leading up to our beach trip, Sweet E and I did lots of beach and ocean activities! It had been two (pandemic-filled) years since our last vacation, so we were overdue. Take a look at the fun learning activities we did to help us get psyched!
Books
Painting Sea Stars - Invisible Numbers
A spin on our usual invisible number activity. As usual I wrote numbers inside each sea star with a white crayon. But this time I also provided Sweet E with a page of dots, so she could count them up and color in the box that matched the number she just revealed.
Rice Sensory Bin - Ocean Animal Sorting
This free printable came from Teachers Pay Teachers, and Sweet E had SO much fun with it! I used a scalloped circle punch to cut out all the ocean animals, and I hid them in a bin of our rainbow rice.
As Sweet E found them, she could name the animal and match it up where it belongs.
It became a sort of a game, to see which ocean animal would win! Lo and behold it was the shark. 😉
She happily finished finding each and every one!
Even Little M&M joined us at the end, and the two of them kept hiding the ocean animals back in the rice so they could find them again.
And at the end, well, you know what always happens...😂
Cutting Practice
Learning Notebook - Using Stencils
Ocean Puzzles and Games
Feed the Shark Game
Free printable shark from Mommy Made That, though instead of using the colored fish, I printed blank fish from somewhere else and added numbers for a dice game!
Sweet E counted up the dots on the dice.
Found the fish with that number, and fed the hungry shark!
I had some extra fish, and Sweet E wanted to cut them out herself for some more scissor practice!
Clamshell Sound Match
I saw this idea from Turner Tots, but there was no free printable so I made my own in Photoshop. Sweet E needed to pick up a picture, and put that "pearl" into the clamshell with the right beginning sound.
Travel Journal
When each of the kids turned three, I had them decorate a composition notebook for a travel journal. (Sweet E is 4, but this was her first vacation since turning 3.) Then, each evening of our trip, I sat down with her and transcribed her version of that day's events. Honey Pot and Little M&M write about their days on their own now, and they have so much fun looking back on previous entries!
Shapes and Kinetic Sand
To begin, I drew a square in our kinetic sand, for Sweet E to cover with seashells. This was a nice, tactile way to do some shape review!
Then Sweet E wanted to draw her own shapes, which was wonderful!
She chose a triangle...
Then drew a rectangle to cover...
Then a circle...
And finally, a heart. Loved that she came up with all of these by herself. And how cute is that heart?!
Octopus Color Code
I saw this idea on Instagram from APlayFilledLife. Such a fun, quick activity for letter review and beginning coding skills!
Sand Castle Craft
First Sweet E helped crush up some graham crackers. This craft idea comes from Making Mama Magic, except they used real sand instead of graham crackers.
I put the graham cracker crumbs into a small sand pail, with a shovel, and invited Sweet E to create a sandcastle in her inflatable tray (which I LOVE for containing messy activities).
She started by squeezing glue onto all the lines.
I expected her to just do the outline, but she wanted to do the windows too!
Then she sprinkled the "sand" on top.
After dumping the excess off, she was left with this beautiful creation! Love how it came out!
Collecting Seashells - Countdown
Every time we go to the beach, we make some kind of a countdown. Paper chains are great, but I love coming up with fun, new ways to count down. This year we made a bucket, with a slot inside. Then each morning, the kids can place the seashell with the highest number inside the bucket, and see how many days are left.
Now that our trip is over, we've got lots of holiday fun coming up--Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas all in a row! Stay tuned!
