First Grade, Science, Set Two

Here is the list of resources we used for learning about Oceans and Seas:

• See the Ocean by Estelle Condra -- a picture book about a family that spends their summers at the beach
• Big Blue Ocean by Bill Nye -- we are using this book for an experiment each week
• Make a tsunami in your bathtub pg 41

Just a bit of water in the bathtub, a lid on a string (arrow points to it) and some bottle caps. Drag the lid from the deepest water up the the "shore". Your tsunami will wash the "houses" out to sea.

• How much of the earth's surface is covered with water pg 7

The book tells you how many inches of 1-inch wide tape to put on the ball to simulate the amount of water. Then I let K. color the tape blue.

• See gases in water pg 11
• Make your own thermohaline current pg 31
• See how the sun affects the ocean pg 39
• Kingfisher Young Knowledge Oceans and Seas by Nicola Davies -- at first this book was not interesting to K. because I was trying to read all the information (because it is interesting to me). So then I backed off and just read the largest print and we looked at the pictures. This book has a page that shows a food chain, kelp forests, and coral reefs.
• The Usborne Internet-linked First Encyclopedia of Seas & Oceans by Ben Denne -- so far we have used this book for learning about:
• Food chains. Usborne directed us to the American Museum of Natural History website where there is a game to play, discovering what eats what. There are a bunch of other things that look like fun, too.
• Giant Kelp by Nan Criqui -- I discovered this website while looking for a map that would show where kelp forests are. (We marked them on a map.) We skimmed most of the information, but did the experiment to see what is in the kelp's bladders to make the kelp stand up instead of lying on the ocean floor.

Three containers, one with air, one with water, one with sand. Put them in water and see which floats best.

• The Great Undersea Search by Kate Needham -- find the hidden things, about 100 on every double page
• The Fishy Field Trip by Martin Schwabacher (a "The Magic School Bus Chapter Book") -- we have been reading this book all week. It is very interesting and we are learning all sorts of interesting things about coral reefs and all the animals that live there. We added quite a bit of information to her notebook while reading this.
• This week we read The Great Shark Escape by Jennifer Johnston (another "Magic School Bus Chapter Book") -- another good read, but if you only have time for one Magic School Bus book, Fishy Field Trip would be my choice.
• See Through the Sea by Millicent Selsam
• Parrotfish and Sunken Ships by Jim Arnosky -- explores a tropical reef
• The Great Undersea Search by Kate Needham -- this is a picture search book by Usborne
• Reefs by Sally M. Walker

We didn't make a mural, but K. drew this picture on the chalkboard in her room.

If you can, take a trip to an aquarium. This past summer we had been to Cabrillo Marine Aquarium over the summer, but got there too late to do the touch tank, so had promised K. we would go again. I took her this week. Because we had been learning about "all this stuff", it was much more interesting to her and we would stand and talk about what we were seeing. If there are no aquariums near you, borrow videos from the library about the ocean.

Kindergarten, Science, Week 26

If you can't get to an aquarium or the ocean, borrow videos of ocean life from your library.

This week we:

• read books about the sea
• added sea weed and creatures to our sea mural
• Free Clip Art -- this is a website for teachers and students. You can use up to 50 clip art items in a single, non-commercial project without further permission.
• K. helped me find the creatures she was interested in putting on the mural, then we printed, colored, cut them out, and glued them on the mural.
• The school of fish I cut from construction paper.
• The sea weed is green tissue paper.

Here are the books we read this week:

• The Ocean Alphabet Board Book by Jerry Pallotta (K. really liked this one)
• Keep the Lights Burning, Abbie by Peter and Connie Roop
• Starfish by Edith Thacher Hurd (lots of good information presented very simply)
• Nature Hide and Seek: Oceans by John Norris Wood
• Across the Big Blue Sea by Jakki Wood
• A House for Hermit Crab by Eric Carle

Kindergarten, Science, Week 25

Over the weekend we went to the local aquarium to look and touch the sea creatures.

This week we

• read about day 5 from The Creation
• read books about the sea and
• looked at our collection of sea shells. K. really enjoyed this, so we did it a few days.
• We talked about which shell we would like to live in if we were Hermit Crab, then when we outgrew it which would we like, etc.
• We also played store, selling the shells to each other for 1¢ each, even having to figure out how much change to give from a nickle or dime.
• If you don't have shells, you can usually find baskets of them at craft supply stores (that is where most of ours came from).
• painted the background of our sea mural
• I cut a 4 - 5 foot section of 18-inch high poster paper
• We painted brown along the bottom for the sand (I only had white, red, and green tempera paint, so I mixed some red and green, but it was too dark, so I added some white, and it turned out pretty well). I had some burnt sienna acrylic paint and put streaks of it on the brown tempera. While the paint was still wet, we sprinkled silver glitter on it.
• After the "sand" was dry, we used blue finger paint to make the water, leaving some white at the top of the page for those mammals that will need air.
• When it was all dry I stapled the mural in K.'s room.

Here are the books we read this week:

• Oozey Octopus: A Tale of a Clever Critter by Suzanne Tate
• Great Sharky Shark: A Tale of a Big Hunter by Suzanne Tate
• Danny & Daisy: A Tale of a Dolphin Duo by Suzanne Tate
• Sandy Seal: A Tale of Sea Dogs by Suzanne Tate
• Katie K. Whale: A Whale of a Tale by Suzanne Tate
• Mister Seahorse by Eric Carle
• Follow the Water from Brook to Ocean by Arthur Dorros
• What Lives in a Shell? by Kathleen Weidner Zoehfeld
• A House for Hermit Crab by Eric Carle
• Across the Big Blue Sea by Jakki Wood
• Nature Hide & Seek: Oceans by John Norris Wood

For older children, Pagoo by Holling Clancy Holling would be good.

If you want ideas for projects, The Ocean Book: Aquarium and Seaside Activities and Ideas for All Ages by the Center for Marine Conservation has a lot of good stuff.

You will also find some good things in Oceans by Teacher Created Materials, Inc. (TCM 284). It is based on the story "The Crab that Played with the Sea" a Just-So Story by Rudyard Kipling and the book The Cay by Theodore Taylor. It is for intermediate grades, and when K. is older we will probably use it.