Ocean Exploration

We spent quite a bit of time learning about the ocean and sea creatures.  It's a topic of high interest and a topic in which most children already have strong working knowledge so they get to build upon their understanding with new experiences.

The Bunnies did some sand art and learned how to handle a squeeze bottle of glue.

They used some non-fiction ocean books to help them identify some sea creature toys we had.

They played a simple Go Fishing game (by Fisher Price) in which they used the fishing pole to catch a fish, and then sorted the fish into the proper boats by matching the color on the underside of each fish.

These guys did something really amazing.  They stretched out half-unit blocks in a long row, and then put one sea creature on each block.  They even sorted them somewhat by putting like animals together.  This may look like simple play, but what I see is much more.  These boys (and others who are not in the picture) sorted by attribute and demonstrated understanding of one to one correspondence.  Both of these skills are crucial for the understanding of math and science.  In addition what they demonstrated was perseverance and collaboration.  They continued to work while others drifted away.  It is so exciting when kids dig in and really play hard.