Your preschool and kindergarten-aged children will love learning all about the ocean. These ocean-themed activities are perfect for spring and summer. Use these activities in a traditional school or homeschool setting!
Do you want all the activities in this blog post? Check out the ocean unit here.
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Read About the Ocean
We read 5 books about the ocean. For each of the books, we did 5 reading lessons, one for each day of the week.
We kicked off this ocean unit by reading the book Swimmy by Leo Lionni. After finishing the book we talked about the problem and solution in the story. Next, I had my kids draw the problem and solution and explain their images.
The next day we read Summer at the Seashore by Sue Tarsky. After reading this book the kids cut out the retelling pieces and pasted them onto the worksheet in the correct order. This book is great because it is a counting book!
Our next reading skill was inferences. We read the book Commotion in the Ocean by Giles Andreae. This is a poetry book. The kids had to infer what each poem was about and draw their answers in the boxes as we read.
Next, we talked about vocabulary. We read aloud What Lives in a Shell? by Kathleen Weidner Zoehfeld. After reading the kids drew an image for each ocean-themed vocabulary word.
The final reading activity for our ocean unit was an O alphabet emergent reader. The kids read the words on the page and pointed to each word as they read.
Preschool Ocean Themed Literacy Activities
The first ocean themed literacy activity that we did was sand letter writing. We poured sand into a shallow tray and had students pull the printed letter cards. They would say the name of each letter and trace the letter into the sand. This is the sand we used. It comes in many colors. You can use any shallow tray or buy a letter-writing tray like this one. Another great alternative to a letter tray is a pencil box, like this, simply shut the lid and store it away for next time!
Our next literacy activity for our ocean unit was a cover the letter. The kids picked up printed letter cards, said the name of the letter, and located the upper-case partner on the worksheet. We covered them using mini erasers but you could use dot markers, stickers, etc.
Wednesday I set up an ocean write the room for the kids. I placed ocean words on cards around the room. The kids had to find them and copy the words onto their recording sheets.
For the next activity, we explored rhyming words. The kids took turns using the magnetic fishing pole to pick up fish word cards with an image on them and place them into the correct rhyming word family. You can grab magnetic fishing poles on Amazon.
Our final literacy activity for the week was using dot markers to stamp the letters on our worksheets. The kids picked up letter cards and found the matching letters on their worksheets. We did both upper and lower-case letters with this activity.
Math Ocean Activities
Our first math activity was ocean-themed pattern blocks. I used these pattern blocks which I got off Amazon. The kids loved making crabs, stingrays, fish, etc out of the blocks. We took it a step further and counted the number of each type of block as well.
We worked on number formation with number strips. To keep them write-on, and wipe-off I laminated them. I differentiated them with numbers in sequence and repeated numbers for practice. I had my kids say the numbers as they wrote them.
Our next activity was ocean graphing. There are two pictures for the kids to look at and count the number of items within. They then graphed each image.
We got in some fine motor work with counting by doing these ocean-themed counting cards. The kids counted the number of fish in the tank and clipped the matching number on the card.
Our final math activity was cube numbers and patterns. We took our math cubes and placed them in the same pattern as the picture. Then we counted the cubes.
Sensory, Science, and Social Ocean Themed Activities
The first activity for the week was a sensory bin. I leave this bin out for the entire week. I filled a tub with water beads and used these plastic sea animals as figures. The kids had a great time exploring the sensory bin.
Next, we made these beautiful ocean scene suncatchers to hang on our windows to display. We used black construction paper to create the ocean scenery pieces and to give a bubble effect we used circle tissue paper. This pack of circle tissue paper on Amazon has different-sized circles. They are so pretty in the windows!
Our next activity was an ocean animal rescue. This one needs a bit of prep but my kids had a ton of fun rescuing the ocean animals from the ice block. They begged to do the activity multiple times. We used droppers, a chisel, and a hammer to rescue the creatures. I used the same plastic creatures from the sensory bin for this activity.
The kids put on their scientist hats for this living and nonliving sort. They had to decide which cards showed items that were living or nonliving. Then they placed the card on the correct mat.
Our final ocean themed activity for preschool was a rainbow fish name craft. We read aloud The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister and created our rainbow fish using metallic and paper confetti. Then the kids wrote their names in bubbles and glued them to the top. This was the perfect culmination and the name fish looked really cute hanging up.
We had a busy week filled with so many ocean themed activities for preschool. This was a fun unit and perfect for spring/summer. Don’t forget to grab the ocean unit here if you loved all these activities!
