Ocean Learning: Week Two (Atlantic Ocean)
Ready to take a deep dive with us into the Atlantic Ocean? We’ve partnered with a homeschool Kid Lab family to bring you ocean learning activities for preschoolers and beyond. Follow along as they share their week.
We started out exploring the Atlantic with sand and shell terrarium building. We used glass fish bowls with a few inches of sand and then had fun creating our own Atlantic beaches with shells, sea glass, mosaic beads and ocean animals. This was an incredibly simple activity that our kids spent hours working on over the period of a few days. Feel free to use anything you have around your house to recreate—glass mason jars, rice or beans instead of sand (you can even dye rice), beads or costume jewelry as sea glass and shells, boats or lighthouses cut out of paper.
A few days later, we decided to mix some sand into a batch of play dough and work with it that way. Such a great compromise between store-bought kinetic sand and the messy sand sensory bins that seem to seep into every nook and cranny of a house. We used sticks to write letters in the play dough and tried shaping it into the rocky Atlantic shoreline of Canada and the Northeastern United States. We used the Kid Lab no-cook recipe for the play dough and just kept mixing sand in until we liked the texture. It does get a little dry, so adding a bit of extra or oil is probably a good idea.
Next, we learned about salt relief painting and used the technique to make pictures of lighthouses of North Carolina. Again, this is a super simple activity that you can do with just four materials. Paper, especially a little bit thicker paper, salt, paint and water. Just thin out some watercolor and use it to make a fairly wet picture. Before the water has dried, sprinkle salt anywhere you like. Our salt didn't really dissolve and crystallize, but still very pretty! We had so much fun with paper, we decided to make origami pelicans. It was fun to learn that they are found in Eastern Europe and remember that the ocean stretches all the way to another continent.
The rest of the week, we poured over a guidebook for the Atlantic Coast, including Hello Lighthouse with pictures by one of our favorite author/illustrators, Sophie Blackall, and Waiting for the Whales by Sheryl McFarlane. This touching book about family, loneliness, reconnection and nature is set on the coast of Canada's Pacific Northwest. We have also enjoyed daydreaming along with When Ocean Meets the Sky and revisiting One Morning in Maine, an old favorite by Robert McCloskey, that is takes place in a harbor town in Maine.
Author:
Riva Binks is a full-time homeschooling educator, writer and Registered Holistic Nutritionist. She has a PhD in Sociology from Carleton University in Canada.