Week Six: Ocean, Beach and Water (Pirate Day and Water Day)

The treasure we discovered and the bottle we put the treasure in.

Today was as special day.  We spent the whole day outside.  We started with drawing chalk outside where the kids could draw on everything but the house.  We went on a little treasure hunt outside so we could be like pirates.  We made bottles of treasure to take home.  Then we played with the water from a sprinkler.  Then we made it through singing time since everyone was starving for lunch.  During lunch we read stories, and everyone played a little more.  It was fun to have a day mostly outside to give the kids variety.  They all seemed to have a better chance to play together and interact with some of the outside activities.  For more pictures, look to "Ocean Theme" to look at the week.

Week Five: Ocean, Beach, Water

This week we played in the murky jello ocean to find some fish and sea bubbles (candy fish and marshmallows.)  Everyone seemed to really enjoy just playing with their oceans.  We played outside and inside during our break.  Then we came inside and painted our seashells.  It was as wonderful day!

Week Four: Ocean, Beach, and Water

This week's sensory activity was melting ocean ice cubes packed with treasures, ("jewels", rocks, beads, and glitter.)  We have done similar things before, but the kids really love playing with the water like that.  We did some watercolors on real watercolor paper, and then put salt on their drawings to make an "ocean" texture.  I had drawn some fish on the pictures beforehand and they showed up on some pictures well, and not as well on others.  We also played with waterballoons, which go fast, but are super fun.  The weather was really wonderful for outside play, and quite wet on Wednesday.  Look to "Ocean Theme" for pictures.

Week Three: Ocean, Beach, Water.

We had a sensory activity in the morning with creating their own beaches.  The kids had some "beach" pudding (using water instead of milk for allergies).  They played with the ocean and beach sand.  We talked about how animals (like animal crackers) live on long and fish live in the water.  The marshmallows were supposed to be like waves, or sea foam.

For the craft we learned a lot about whales, and I showed them a couple of video clips of the 4 whales we drew for the whale mobile: killer/orca whale, beluga whale, blue whale, and humpback whale.  The children were fascinated with the big whales moving and it was fun.  Look to "Ocean Theme" for more pictures.

Week Two: Ocean, Beach and Water

Look to recent activities for pictures from this week of the kiddos.  They were very engrossed in making their own "oceans" and adding baking soda to the vinegar water to make it fizz.  I can tell as the kids have been in preschool for a few weeks now, they are getting to know each other better and are more comfortable with their surroundings.  They now know where to get into the toys and what they like to play with outside.