Under the Sea

The cool misty mornings that October brings with it always make me happy as it suggests the onset of winters. And if you live in the part of India that i do, you would understand the importance of winters and good weather.  I also look forward to the month of October  because its full of festivities and holidays. But the best part of October is that i get to teach my favorite unit of sea animals. Did i say that i love the sea and everything that goes along with it ?

No wonder my excitement level in school at this time is at its peak. It rubs off completely on my kids and i can sense enthusiasm and pure joy on their part to learn.

This year our annual event of exhibiting students work also falls in the month of October. Even though i am all charged up to do this unit , i can literally feel myself in the deep waters with all the work that i have taken upon me. But no complaints, I am thoroughly enjoying the process and i know the end product is going to be extremely gratifying.

So without further ado, i will share pictures and activities that my kids have been doing.

A lot of ideas have come from Deanna Jump's Ocean unit and of course everyone's favorite- Pinterest.

I zeroed down on pirates for the class door. The kids made pirate faces by assembling the cutouts and used white paint to make polka dots on the bandannas.

We made a schema of what we know about the ocean. We will add the new learning as we go along.

For the bulletin board, we made Orcas. We read a non fictional book about Killer Whales and did interactive writing on the big cutout of the Orca. Children had a blast making the Orca craft.

We studied about the Great White Shark. and made comparisons with the whale.

We read the book 'Sharks' and wrote facts.

We did shared reading of the poem, "Smiley Sharks" and found sight words . Children drew their own version of the Great White Shark.

We also did directed art and made sharks. The template of the shark came from Deanna's Ocean unit.

I will be posting more fun stuff related to this unit. So do come back for more.

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.