Are you teaching an ocean theme in your preschool classroom or homeschool? Keep reading for the most skill building Under the Sea preschool activities around!
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UNDER THE SEA PRESCHOOL ACTIVITIES
One of the coolest themes to teach (whether you’re homeschooling or teaching in a preschool or kindergarten classroom) is Under the Sea. Little ones are fascinated with learning about and participating in activities about creatures that live in the sea such as orcas, dolphins, blue whales, and sharks. The exploration of these and other sea creatures will lead to interactive STEM play! So get ready to dive underwater to build new skills!
Keep reading for over 20 ocean-related activities for your preschool, pre-k, and kindergarten students. These ideas include literacy, math, and hands on activities. Grab your printables for math & literacy here. Oh, and there’s a freebie, too!
If you want a copy of my early themes (including an editable version where you can type in your own themes), check out this freebie. (*Please note: You will need to download this file to your computer and then open it with Adobe in order to add your own themes. You cannot add your themes from your web browser.)
UNDER THE SEA ACTIVITIES: LITERACY
Before you get started with your ocean theme, make sure you have your books all ready to go! You can check out our favorite books for this theme in this post. There are over 40 books for you to choose from! Make sure to request these from your local library (or order them from Amazon) a few weeks before you start your theme.
You’re definitely going to want to start your ocean theme with these vocabulary cards! Do your littles know the difference between an orca and a dolphin? How about a seal and a manatee? These cards are the perfect way to introduce your little learners to the 15 sea-related words they’ll be learning about over the course of the unit. You can use these vocabulary cards in your writing center, as a Write the Room activity, or as a picture match.
For Write the Room or Color the Room, you can hide the under the sea vocabulary word cards around the room for your little ones to find. (You could also hide them in a sensory bin as an option). Have your little one match the card to the picture on the activity page. They can choose to write the word on the correct line, color the matching picture, or simply circle the picture that is a match.
Syllable awareness is an important phonological awareness skill that little ones need to become strong readers. This activity uses the vocabulary cards to help little ones hear and count the syllables in sea creature names. They will say the name, clapping once for every syllable. Then they will move their game piece that many spaces on the game board. After someone wins, they can sort the cards according to the number of syllables in the name.
Little ones will pick letter cards (either upper or lower case) from a sensory bin of blue rice and try to put them in alphabetical order. As they get more proficient, you can add more letter cards for them to put into ABC order. Finally, they can glue the ordered cards on a piece of paper for some fine motor skill practice.
There are many ways to sort sea creatures, but in this activity it will be by whether they are mammals or not. Talk with your little ones and watch this YouTube video to help them understand the differences (there are five). Then they will try to sort the sea creature vocabulary cards and place them on the correct side of the mat. Can they tell you names of other mammals that they know?
This activity has little ones choosing a picture card, using the picture code to figure out the letters in their CVC word, and placing them on the mat. Then they can blend the sounds together to read the word. Can they tell you if the words are “real” or “nonsense”? Are they able to put the words in alphabetical order? You can do so many extension activities with this game!
Little ones will be choosing a picture card for this activity and saying the two words that the pictures represent (such as “mop” and “map”). They will have to decide if the beginning, middle, or end sound has been changed between the two words. Last they will place a play dough ball in the colored circle under the changed letter sound. This activity is a wonderful way to work on phonemic awareness, which is a crucial skill if you want your little one to become a strong reader!
Before doing this activity, review compound words with your little ones. They will spin a spinner to find the first part of the compound word and look for the pictured last part on the mat. Finally, they will choose the picture card that shows the compound word they created. For more fun, your little ones can make nonsense compound words by combining unusual combinations such as snowshelf. Have them draw pictures of their nonsense compound words!
Little ones LOVE to color by code! They will have to look at the pictures in the key, say the name, and decide what the beginning sound of the name is. Then they will color in the spaces with the color that corresponds to the picture while saying the beginning sound. If able, have them tell you other words that start with the same beginning sound.
These FREE Animal Alphabet Cards include LOTS of ocean animals (like J is for Jellyfish and O is for Octopus) and can be used for all sorts of letter recognition activities.
This activity (along with all of our freebies!) can be downloaded from the Free Activity Library. If you’re already a member of our email community, you can click HERE to head to the Free Activity Library, enter your password (it’s on your most current email from me), and download your copy!
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UNDER THE SEA ACTIVITIES: MATH
This activity uses a number strip that little ones will slide through the opening to indicate how many sea creatures they need to add to the ocean. For little ones who are more advanced, there are addition and subtraction strips that they will solve before adding to (or subtracting from) their ocean.
This subtraction activity uses a Ten Frame so little ones can visually see what subtraction is. They will start by filling in all ten boxes with “fish” (we used blue gems but any small manipulative works!) in the shark’s mouth. Then they will choose a number card and remove that many gems and tell you how many are left. They can write the answer on paper and/or write the subtraction problem as well.
This game will help your little ones recognize feelings by looking at different facial expressions. After talking about what feelings the jellyfish’s different faces are showing, have your little ones make the faces themselves. Then they will roll the dice and color in the circle above the correct jellyfish. Keep rolling until one jellyfish wins. Can they tell which feeling had the most circles and which one had the least? How many more or less?
Practicing number recognition is way more fun when it includes scooping something! Little ones will be feeding “krill” (colored rice or pop poms) to the Blue Whale. They will choose a number card, say the number, and feed that many scoops of krill to the whale. Have them make the sound of the whale while eating!
This is another number recognition activity that includes one-to-one correspondence. Little ones will choose a fish card, count the fish, and place the card on the correct box on the mat. For more fun, you can have them count out goldfish crackers to match the cards they choose.
Here’s another hands-on math activity that builds one-to-one correspondence. Little ones will feed the dolphin “fish” (small gems or pom poms) according to the number of fish on the card they choose. Then they will write the number in the box to practice their handwriting skills.
Little ones will be creating addition problems and solving them in a hands-on way with this activity! Using mini marshmallows to represent turtle eggs, they will choose an addition card and place the number of “eggs” indicated on the card in the circles on the mat. Then they will count all the marshmallows to solve the problem. Talk about how two numbers (part + part) added together make the total (whole).
This activity is good for practicing subitizing, which is the ability to recognize how many of something there is without counting each item. Little ones will choose a number and find the corresponding hand, tally mark, and shark cards that show that number. They will also place the correct number of gems or small manipulatives on the ten frame. The more they practice subitizing, the more proficient they will become!
UNDER THE SEA: HANDS-ON ACTIVITIES
Hands-on activities are always a lot of fun for little ones! This activity uses shaving cream that has been colored blue to represent the ocean. Add blue gems and small ocean creatures and let your little ones have good, clean fun while using their imaginations to explore and get messy!
This is another hands-on activity that inspires creativity in little ones. If you add water to the blue shaving cream in the previous activity, play time will be extended (plus it cleans up the sensory bin, too!) Adding scoops or funnels to the water as well as gems and sea creatures will make playing in the water even more enjoyable.
This is another activity that uses a sensory bin. This one uses kinetic sand for the beach and blue gems for the water. Add whatever sea related items you have to stimulate little ones’ imaginations. Read more in this post.
Fill a ziplock bag with blue hair gel and tape it shut, then tape it to a table. Have your little ones use their finger to write numbers and/or letters on the bag and then use gems to make the letter/number shape.
This is a sensory bin activity that is filled with kinetic sand and buried blue gems that have letters on them. Little ones will uncover the gems and say the letter and sound. Adding seashells to the sensory bin make it perfect for your Under the Sea theme!
This art project goes along with the book The Pout-Pout Fish in the Big-Big Dark and is a super fun way to bring that story to life! Click here to see all the activities we love to do with that book!
UNDER THE SEA PRESCHOOL & PRE-K FUN
I hope these ideas helped you fill-in your Under the Sea lesson plans for your preschool classroom or homeschool! All of the printables for this unit can be found in my Under The Sea Preschool Activity Pack.
What types of under the sea preschool activities do you plan for your littles? Do you have any fun activities that would be great to add to this list? Comment below or find me on Instagram [@littleslovelearningblog] and let me know!
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Happy Learning!
