We had a fun week all about the letter O and oceans! Keep scrolling to see what Sweet E and I did, or click on one of the links below to revisit similar themes from the past.
Summer Units, Fish - 2016
O is for Outer Space - 2015
The Ocean - 2014
The Letter O - 2013
Books
Now that the libraries are open again, we stopped in for a few ocean books! There are a ton of books about individual sea creatures, so we just stuck to the ocean in general. The two on the bottom are from our own collection and are favorites of ours!
Introducing the Letter O
I made a simple page for her to become familiar with the letter O. She had to trace it, stamp it, poke it with a giant pushpin, and build it with playdoh.
She loves doing this!
Fine Motor - Making Waves
I printed this fun sheet from the Education website. Then I provided Sweet E with a q-tip and paint, and invited her to trace along the waves!
Gross Motor - Sea Creature Relay
For this next activity we went outside and played the classic fill-the-bucket game, using a couple bath toys instead of sponges. She and Little M&M had to start at the far bucket, dip their sea creatures in, run back to this bucket, and squeeze the water into it. They kept going until the closer bucket was full!
Soaking her sea creature!
Squeezing is such a great activity to strengthen those hand muscles!
They had so much fun!
Once it was filled up and spilling over the edge, they won the game!
Fishing for Letters
I made a fishing pole for Sweet E out of a stick, string and a magnet. Then while I was cutting out some fish, I had Sweet E give them each an eye using a roll of stickers we have on hand.
I wrote a letter on each fish, and stuck a paperclip onto them. Then I set up the ocean using some patterned paper that looks like water. (I love finding these gems in my old scrapbooking stash!)
And finally we were ready to go fishing! She sat at our picnic table (our boat) and cast her line into the ocean.
Each time she caught a fish she would identify the letter and place it in her bucket.
She loved this game so much!!
Once she had caught all the fish, we flipped over our ocean, where I had written each letter from A-O, and she matched them up.
After that, she returned her fish to the ocean, and played again. And again. And again. I'm telling you, this game was a hit!
She even caught two fish at once!
Ocean Craft
For our craft this week, we first needed to cut up some bleeding tissue paper. We used three shades of blue.
Then we covered an entire sheet of white cardstock with our tissue paper squares.
Next she used a squirt bottle to get the whole thing wet. We did this inside an inflatable tray, which came with her kinetic sand kit, to contain the mess!
Once it was completely saturated we let it sit for just a minute or two.
When we peeled up all the squares, we were left with a beautiful blue piece of paper!
Once it had dried, she glued on a few ocean creatures.
I think it came out super cute!!
Snorkeling for Numbers
This activity was inspired by a video by TheDadLab. First I created a sheet of paper that included the numbers 1 through 10, inside of various sea creatures. Then I slid it under a clear casserole dish.
Next I filled it with a mixture of water and blue paint, so it was slightly opaque. Using a clear cup, we were able to view the pictures underneath.
She moved the cup around, and each time she found a sea creature, she'd identify the number inside it, and mark it on her paper.
It's hard to photograph, but here is an idea of what it looked like.
She kept going until she found all of the numbers!
Fish Ice Cubes - Color Mixing
Using a fish-shaped ice cube tray, I made fish in primary colors.
Then we did a little color mixing experiment!
First we mixed some red and yellow fish together in the water, to see what would happen.
I asked her to make the fish swim around, while we waited for the ice cubes to melt. Great sensory activity; she just loved dunking her hands in there!
Soon, the fish were gone and the water had turned orange! So we marked it on our paper.
Next, we dumped the water and refilled it so we could mix some yellow and blue fish!
After the fishies swam around for a minute, the water turned green!
Finally, we mixed together the red and blue fish, to see what color the water would turn.
It made purple!
It was a very fun week indeed! And we're excited for letter P next week. Stay tuned!
