Slippery Fish

Slippery fish, slippery fish, sliding through the water,Slippery fish, slippery fish, Gulp, Gulp, Gulp!Oh, no! It’s been eaten by an …
Octopus, octopus, squiggling in the waterOctopus, octopus, Gulp, Gulp, Gulp!Oh, no! It’s been eaten by a …
Tuna fish, tuna fish, flashing in the water,Tuna fish, tuna fish, Gulp, Gulp, Gulp!Oh, no! It’s been eaten by a …
Great white shark, great white shark, lurking in the water,Great white shark, great white shark, Gulp, Gulp, Gulp!Oh, no! It’s been eaten by a …
Humongous whale, humongous whale, spouting in the water,Humongous whale, humongous whale, Gulp! … Gulp! … Gulp! … BURP! Pardon me!

Watch this teacher for the greatest tips. I would LOVE to have her teach my kids.

Germs!

Cut confetti out of various colors of construction paper and stuff in into an uninflated balloon. Blow up the balloon and have a pin ready. Pretend to sneeze and at the same time pop the balloon. The confetti or "germs" will fly all over the room. Explain to the children that it is similar with germs when you sneeze. If you don't cover you mouth and nose with a tissue then the germs go all over everyone and everything. Have the children look at how far the germs went. As a transition to wash their hands, sprinkle glitter or "germs" onto their hands and have them scrub until they are all off. It helps them to understand that germs hide in between their fingers and it sometimes takes a while to wash them all off.

Alphabet Walk

Make binoculars with your children out of toilet paper rolls or paper towel rolls. Cover them with construction paper and decorate them with markers, crayons, sticker, etc. Hole punch two holes (one on each side of the binoculars) and tie a string to go around their necks. Then take them on a walk around the neighborhood and look for letters on signs, houses, license plates, cars, etc. Have the children call out the letters they see and try to sound out the words. You could also do this same thing with shapes, colors, or numbers.

Ocean Songs

Baby Beluga
Five Little Fishies Swimming in the Sea (Words in another post)
Ishy Ishy Dance (Words in another post)
My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean
There's a Hole in the Bottom of the Sea
Baby Shark Song (Words in another post)
Slippery Fish Song
Down By the Bay

Ocean Transitions

*Fish Seration (smallest to largest)
*Patterning of different ocean animals
*Counting goldfish in fishbowl
*Ordering shells (# on shells)
*Crab walk to wash hands
*Octopus leg ordering (have head of octopus and #s on legs. Have each child put the next # on)
*Play gossip or telephone with ocean animals
*Ordering 4 beach things (You order them a certain way, mix them up and have them duplicate it the way you had it)
*Sort animals that live in the ocean and animals that don't

Activities for Ocean/Water week

*Play Go Fish (Card Game)

*Play "Let's Go Fishing" (Kids game with plastic fishing poles and fish that open and shut mouths)

*Fish, Fish, Shark (Duck, Duck, Goose)

*Crab Walk Races

*Shark Attack (Play tag and whoever is it is the shark)

*Cut out ocean animals, write gross motor activities on the back and hide them around the room. Have one child at a time find one and do the activity written on the back. For example: swim, skip, walk backwards, crab walk, jumping jacks, hop on one foot, etc.

*Put a beach umbrella in the sand box with buckets, shovels, shells, etc.

*Paint your windows with blue paint and have the kids cut out fish to put "in the ocean"

*Hang blue crepe paper from the ceiling

*Dance with scarves (octopus or jellyfish tenticles) to "Under the Sea"

Ocean Crafts

This picture is sideways. It is a coral tracer that you can either have the children cut out (if they are skilled with scissors) or you can have them pre-cut for the kids. You let them paint with brushes or fingers with orange, red, etc. and then let them sprinkle puffed rice on top of the paint to look like a coral reef. This is a crab that you let the children paint with karo syrup mixed with red dye. It leaves a shiny effect. Have them sprinkle it with sand if they want after they are done painting it.
This lobster can be traced and cut out by the children. Add brad fasteners so that the kids can move the arms.
This is just one of many fish activities you can do. Cut out the triangle for the mouth and use that same triangle for the tail fin. Hole punch the eye to encourange greater hand strength. Then you can color or paint it. We added glitter since we read the Rainbow Fish that day.
*You can also make a "fish bowl" craft by cutting a fish bowl shape out of construction paper, painting it with blue karo syrup, adding small rocks (colored are best) to the bottom of the bowl, then sticking goldfish crackers in the bowl.

*Make sandcastles out of clay and sand mixed together. When they dry the children can take them home.

*Paper bag fish- fill a lunch sack 1/2 full of old newspaper and then tie it with a string. Fan the end of the bag to look like a tail. Add googley eyes to each side and let the children decorate it with markers, crayons, glitter and glue, etc.

*Octopus- Have the children cut eight strips of paper and then # them from 1-8. You could have the top of the octopus already cut out or let them trace and cut it out. Then have them put the legs on the octopus in order 1-8.

*Jellyfish- Have the children trace and cut out a semi-circle for the top of the jellyfish. Use crepe paper for the tenticles. Let them choose how long they want the tenticles and then glue them on to the top. Hang them from the ceiling and the fan or A/C will make them move.

*Sharks- Cut out a large shark head with mouth open and have the children cut out little triangles for the teeth. Have them glue the teeth in the sharks mouth and color the shark.

Ocean/Water Books

Rainbow Fish By Marcus Pfister
Swimmy
Fidety Fish
ABSeas
A House for Hermit Crab By Eric Carle
Guess Who Ocean Friends By Jodie Shepherd
Dolphin's Big Leap! By Kimberly Wienberger
Clumsy Crab By Ruth Galloway
The Big Wide-Mouthed Frog By Ana Martin Larranaga
The Selfish Crocodile by Faustin Charles
Five Green and Speckled Frogs
Ruby in Her Own Time (Ducks) By Jonathan Emmett
The Pout-Pout Fish By Deborah Diesen
Down By the Cool of the Pool (Frog) By Tony Mitton
Commotion in the Ocean By Giles Andreae
Five Little Sharks Swimming in the Sea By Steve Metzger
Colors with Crocodile (Toddler Board Book)

Valentine Science Project

For A Valentine's science idea use white carnations and mix up red food coloring and water. Cut the stem to fit in your vase and then cut a vertical X in the base of the stem and place the flowers in the red water. The next day it will already be turning a light red color and will keep changing. It is exciting to see the flowers change colors!

Fun Activity

Silhouette:

You will need:
White construction paper,
Red construction paper,
glue,
scissors,
markers,
pencil,
masking tape,
smooth wall,
and a light source (lamp, overhead projector, etc.)

Directions:
1. Use masking tape to affix White construction paper onto a smooth wall.
2. Turn on light source.
3. Place child in front of white construction paper facing sideways so that their profile creates a shadow that will fit onto white construction paper. Depending on the size of the child's profile you might have to move the light source closer or further back to make it fit on to the white construction paper.
4. Once established, trace the child's profile with a pencil.
5. Re-trace in black marker. Remove from wall.
6. Cut out white construction paper profile with scissors.
7. Glue profile onto Red construction paper and write the child's name, age, and date on it. And there you have a personal silhouette of your child! Note: You can have your child stand or sit (be sure to provide a chair) inside a large box or a ward robe box while posing for their profile. You can use this for anytime of the year too. Traditionally, silhouettes are traced on Black Construction paper (with white chalk) with a White Construction paper background

Valentine Craft

Arts and Crafts Activity
1. Heart Animals: Make animals out of different shaped hearts.

2. Empty a small box of conversation hearts. Make sure you get the boxes that have the heart shaped cut out with cellophane over it. Take individual pictures of your class using a white background with red hearts hung all around. Cut the front of the box off from the rest of the box. Cut the child's picture out so that it will fit into the heart shape cutout in the box. Laminate and put a magnet on the back. The front of the box makes a precious picture frame

3. Valentine Necklace:
Using cheap clear plastic table cloths or clear plastic cut out hearts (about hand size). Put two together and hole punch them around the edges. Have kids sew them together with red, pink, or white yarn/string. Have them leave an opening at the top. Inside they can stuff a variety of things into the heart like shredded red and pink paper, conversation hearts, valentine candies, etc. Be creative! Then, finish sewing it up, and leave extra string to make a necklace!

Valentine Math Activity

Conversation Heart Counting: Play a counting and sorting game with conversation heart candies. Try sequencing by making patterns of colors.

On a large piece of poster board, draw five large hearts. In each heart write a number one through five. Each child gets a turn tossing a beanbag to hit the highest number. Or can use more beanbags and the child has to add his score. This also works great in the summer with sidewalk chalk on the driveway.

Valentine Literacy Activity

Capital/Lower-case Letter Game:

To help kids learn their capital and small letters cut out small hearts of a variety of colors and write a letter on each one. Place all the small letter hearts into a container. Divide the big letter hearts among the children (or play in teams). A heart will be pulled from the container and the child will say if the letter matches.

Valentine Music Activity

Music Activity

Mailman, Mailman Where's My Mail?:
Choose one child to be the postman and give him/her the mailman's hat (red strip of paper with pink heart that says mailman).
The mailman must hide his/her eyes while you give another child a valentine to hide behind their back.
Then the mailman uncovers his/her eyes and faces his/her classmates who say, "Mailman, mailman, where's the mail?”
The mailman gets three guesses to find out who is hiding the mail.
If he/she guesses correctly, he/she continues as postman.
If he/she guesses incorrectly, the person with the mail becomes the mailman.

Apple craft

-Apple Core

Need: paper plate, jagged scissors, red paint, watermelon seeds (or black beans work well too.), glue

Directions: Take a paper plate and cut out both sides with jagged scissors. It will look kind of like an hour glass. Use red tempera paint and paint both ends of the plate. Then get watermelon seeds (dry them) and glue three in a triangle in the center of the paper plate. Wa la, an apple core.