Fun At the Beach

We are fortunate enough to live in a place that is surrounded by beautiful beaches, so needless to say that is where we spend most of our time. Our days at the beach seem to provide so many incidental learning opportunities for the boys - collecting and sorting shells, making pictures with shells, building sandcastles and sculptures, writing numbers and letters in the sand, identifying and classifying sea life in the rock pools, then list is endless. Below are some fun activities that can be done as a follow up from a day at the beach or a holiday away at the beach.

After a long walk along the beach collecting shells, Master 4 and I took the opportunity to make some sea creatures from his find together.

Today after our visit to the beach the boys and I read Mr Seahorse by Eric Carle. Below are some activities you can do as a fun follow up to the book.

1. In a foil baking tray place a piece of white A4 paper.


2. Place blobs of blue and green paint everywhere and put in 5 marbles. Using a rocking motion (like a seahorse I told Master 2) move the tray back and forth... back and forth to give a seaweed look.


3. While the paint was drying I gave Master 2 an outline of a seahorse and some cut up tissue paper. He happily spread watered down PVA glue all over the seahorse and covered it in colours.


4. When both the seahorse and paint were dry we glued on an eye and glued Mr Seahorse onto the seaweed.
   
   

1. In a small dish, mix one part of PVA glue to one part water and stir till evenly mixed in a white watery texture.


2. Put small dobs of paint of various colours in your palette. Not too much as you want your paints to be fairly watery.


3. Pour a little PVA glue mix into each of the sections. Mix well with the paint colour.


4. Dip your paintbrush in the colour of your choice, touch it gently to the tissue paper, and let the colour bleed into the tissue. Keep going till you’ve covered the whole tissue paper square with a rainbow of colours.


5. Set aside to dry.


6. Using a marker, draw the outline of your own Mister Seahorse.


7. Cut out your seahorse. Also cut out the little fin and spikes, a tiny dark circle for the pupil of the seahorse’s eye, and a slightly larger white circle for the white of the eye.


8. Paste your seahorse onto another clean sheet of paper.

This is a little song I like to sing with the boys after we have been to the beach or visiting the rock pools.

The Creatures in the Sea (Tune of Wheels on The Bus)

The Sharks in the sea go chomp, chomp, chomp....all day long
The Seahorse in the sea rock back and forth, back and forth, back and forth....all day long
The Octopus in the sea go tickle, tickle, tickle...all day long (wriggle hands everywhere over body)
The Fish in the sea dart all around, all around, all around (move hand like fast swimming fish)
The Whales in the sea go spurt, spurt, spurt ...all day long (flick fingers from top of head like blow hole)
The Crabs in the sea walk side to side, side to side,side to side...all day long (walk on hands sideways like a crab)
The Lobster in the sea go snap, snap, snap...all day long (hold hands up and make snapping action)
* You can make up lots more to go with this song and create your own actions/movements