Preschoolders are fascinated by the ocean and its mysteries.
The ocean and its inhabitants provide plenty of opportunities for kids to learn and create. In addition to learning interesting facts about fish, they can also practice their colors, numbers, sizes, patterns and shapes. Kids learn by doing and repetition. Surround them with a class environment that encourages them to explore and talk about the theme throughout the day. For example, provide books about fish in the book area and eat fish crackers, tuna salad or fish sticks as a snack.
Naming Activity
Both a lionfish and a lion have beautiful manes.
The goal of this activity is to familiarize the children with some fish names. Each kid will get a chance to pull out a plastic fish or a laminated photo of a fish from a bag, name it and put it in water. To facilitate this activity, provide a water table or any other container filled with water.
Bring a bag filled with pairs of items taped together, such as a lionfish and a lion or a hammerhead shark and a hammer. One item is the actual fish and the other is the clue for the name of the fish. Fish with colors are interesting for this activity, including blue fish, yellowtail and goldfish. These could be paired with crayons of the same color.
Fish that have animal names are exciting for preschoolers. In this category you can use seahorses, elephant fish, lionfish and zebra fish. Other fish of interest are hammerhead sharks, saw sharks, sailfish and stone fish. Repeat the activity several times with new fish each time.
At the end, give the kids paper in the shape of a fish and let them color the fish and then name it according to how it looks.
Camouflage Activity
A leafy sea dragon provides a great example of camouflage.
Learning about fish is a great opportunity to learn about animals blending in their environment. Preschoolers can understand that fish eat other fish, and that fish might need to hide in order to catch a meal or avoid becoming a meal. Even if they cannot fully understand this concept, most children enjoy a game of hide and seek or peek-a-boo, so they can understand what the fish are doing on a more playful note.
Explain that fish can camouflage by changing their colors or by adopting a shape that is similar to their environment. Show photos of a stone fish, octopus, sea dragon and other marine animals that are in the process of blending with their surroundings. Then play hide and seek shark in a field or a gym.
To play, scatter different colored hula hoops around the gym. You can also use other materials to add shapes or patterns, such as stripes. As you call out different fish names, such as bluefish or zebra fish, the kids have to find the appropriate camouflage and get there by making swimming motions. Kids enjoy being fish and running toward their hiding spots when you act as a shark that is coming to get them.
Ocean Art Activity
This is an activity that preschoolers can slowly add to as the unit on fish progresses. An aquarium with a lid is great for this activity. Another option is to take a big box, cut large rectangles out of each of its sides and tape clear plastic wrap to the cut sides. As the children learn about the ocean and its inhabitants, they can add those items to the aquarium.
First they add sand to the bottom. Then they can find rocks outside and glue pieces of green tissue paper to them. Those rocks with "seaweed" can be coral and lay right on top of the sand or on top of each other. The kids can add starfish, jellyfish, sharks, fish of different colors, fish with different patterns and fish of different sizes. They can add schools of fish while counting the number of fish in each school.
It is useful to tie each fish with a blue string and suspend it from the top of the box. This gives the illusion of fish swimming at different depths. Finally, add some blue paper waves around the fish.
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