Under the sea

I have always found the sea and the world under the sea fascinating. Living in a land locked city all most all my life, i never got to experience the joy of being near the ocean. I was 18, when i first visited Mumbai and got the first exposure of the sea. It was a wonderful experience which i really can't put in words but i know that when i am near the sea i am the happiest person on Planet Earth. The smooth sand, the expanse of the ocean,the sound of the waves,  i love everything about the ocean. I have had an opportunity to be on many beaches across the world since my first experience. And each one has been special.

Since i have been so verbose about my love for the ocean , it is but obvious that when it comes to teaching the unit of sea animals in class i am always over the moon. It is my favorite unit and my kids enjoy learning it it as much as i enjoy teaching it.

I completed the unit last month in my class and it was a great success. My little ones picked up vocabulary like "Crustacean"," Mammals","Sea weed", "corals" and many more words which honestly i did not expect them to learn.  I had purchased the ocean unit by Deanna Jump. It had some wonderful information and templates.

I am sharing some pictures of how the unit turned out in my class.

We talked about parts of a fish and named few fishes that we knew. The most common one was the clown fish. Thanks to 'Finding Nemo' ! :)

We talked about sharks. It sure got the boys super excited!!

Children also sang the five little sharks song and enacted it using stick puppets.

I made some animal charts-few had facts and others had wordings from the book called commotion in the ocean. We used these to read and circle sight words done in class.

We talked about jelly fish and Octopus and children made their own crafts

I made a mural on the back wall  of my class. It consists of all the craft that children did related to the unit.

I also hung a fishing net, which i proudly procured from Cochin,one of my beach destinations. :)

We also talked about pirates and did a little role play. Children wore pirate hats and loved saying "ARGH"

We rounded up the unit by doing a graph on favorite sea animals

I will do another post of the books we read on the topic and will share some worksheets which the children did as a recap.