Oceans

Personal Social and Emotional

Talk about what an ocean is and if the children can name any. Show the globe and see if they can identify any oceans identifying hot and cold oceans. Encourage children to share their favourite ocean creatures and why they like them.

Communication and Language

Talk about what different types of animals live in the ocean and how we can take care of them e.g. throwing rubbish away. Identify how we can go into the ocean, e.g. swimming, diving, boats, submarine, cruise ship or see it from an aeroplane window.

Physical Development

Cutting paper strips to make an octopus or jellyfish. Using a large sheet of paper outside encourage children to paint large waves or ocean creatures. Provide blue jelly and encourage children to pick out fish, shells and plastic bottles and identify what belongs in the ocean and what doesn’t.

Literacy

Write some letters onto shells and place them into a tray of sand. Encourage children to talk about the different letters they uncover. Can they find letters that are in their name?

Mathematics

Sing and count along to “1,2,3,4,5 Once I caught a fish alive” showing how many fingers for the song. Use positional language to describe where the dolphin is in the setting e.g. under, inside, on top of.

Understanding the World

Encourage children to share if they have been to an aquarium or sea life centre. Talk about our role in keeping the oceans clean and helping the ocean environment.

Expressive Art and Design

Invite children to explore colour mixing by providing blue, white and green paint for children to mix together to create different shades for ocean paintings. Encourage children to create their own sea creatures using a variety of art and craft materials or recycled materials such as bottle tops.

Focused Vocabulary

Ocean, Seas, Water, Fish, Coral, Seaweed, Tropical, Artcit