Beach Theme

    Page 2

    See also my Under The Sea theme pages!
    Theme Ideas

    A beach scene, sand, sea & sky, with crabs, bucket & spades, beach ball, fish, boats, airplanes, birds & kite. Place these on the obvious background. Talk about holidays, sunburn, swimming, etc and also the words/concepts - above, below, underneath, high, low, etc.

    ~Submitted by Jackie from Liverpool, England

    Music To Relax By

    A variety of tapes (beach boys, my favorite), tape recorder, beach bag, if possible, earphones. Put a tape player in a beach bag. Include tapes of a variety of types of music in the bag. A child selects a tape to hear while relaxing on the beach. Earphones make the selection and listening more private for the child.

    ~Submitted by Cheryl in NY

    Adding Spark To the Beach Center

    Play music with nature sounds from the beach. These sounds are intriguing for young children and will keep them coming back.

    ~Submitted by Cheryl in NY

    Lifeguard Post

    classroom chair, paper, and glue or pieces of contact paper, if possible, a beach umbrella, rescue board, life preserver, megaphone. Transform a classroom chair into a lifeguard stand. Decorate the chair using paper and or pieces of contact paper. If possible, include items a lifeguard needs such as an umbrella, a board, a life preserver, sun lotion and a megaphone (whistles for you brave soles)

    ~Submitted by Cheryl in NY

    Boats

    Appliance boxes, paint, and brushes, crayons, and markers, if possible, child size life preservers. The children make fishing boats, sailboats or speed boats using appliance boxes. Make the boats large enough for children to sit inside during role-playing. The children paint and decorate each boat. Add child size life preservers to the boat for a realistic element.

    ~Submitted by Cheryl in NY

    Palm Trees

    Large cardboard rolls, paint, and brushes, green crepe paper scissors, glue. Construct palm trees using the large cardboard rolls, (from carpet and linoleum stores). The children paint the rolls. Then construct large green leaves from crepe paper and glue the leaves to the inside of the top of the rolls.

    ~Submitted by Cheryl in NY

    Examine Starfish And Seahorses

    Explain to your child that starfish and seahorses have an exoskeleton, or their bones are on the outside. Let them examine dried, dead seahorses and starfish.

    ~Submitted by Cheryl in NY

    Playdough Starfish

    Obtain a few star cookie cutters. Show your child how to roll the playdough with a rolling pin and cut it with the cookie cutter, to make starfish. Can they form a starfish without the cookie cutter?

    ~Submitted by Cheryl in NY

    Submarine Play

    Set out a large box with low sides for the children to use as a submarine and a paper tube as a periscope. Provide children with diving gear as well. Masks, snorkel, flippers, etc.

    ~Submitted by Cheryl in NY

    Leg Count

    Show pictures of a crab, octopus, starfish, and frog. How many legs does each of the animals have?

    ~Submitted by Cheryl in NY

    What Do Fish Need To Live?

    Discuss a fishes need in the sea or lake. Where do fish live? What do fish eat? Etc.

    ~Submitted by Cheryl in NY

    Octupus Color Changes

    Discuss with your child how an octopus will change colors to blend with its surroundings. Cut four or five different colored octopus from construction paper. Set out four or five of matching sheets of construction paper. Ask your child to match the octopus with its background.

    ~Submitted by Cheryl in NY

    Play Fisherman

    Let the children pretend to be fishermen. Use a box with low sides for a boat, dowels with strings for poles, and plastic fish. (The children can pretend to be fish as well.) Provide shading hats, empty tackle boxes, and lunchpails.

    ~Submitted by Cheryl in NY

    Under the Sea Play

    Go to the 1/2 off Card Shop or a place that sells party supplies. Buy plates with different kinds of fish on them. Cut out the fish and attach to a popsicle stick. Allow the children to play with different kinds of fish.

    ~Submitted by Cheryl in NY

    Shell Hunt

    Fill a dishpan half full of sand and shell. Let child find the shells, and count them when they are done.

    ~Submitted by Cheryl in NY

    Shell Match and Sort

    Place many different kinds of shell out. Have child sort the shell by type.

    ~Submitted by Cheryl in NY
    As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases
    Be a Jellyfish

    I suggest that you get a book from the library about fish, that includes a little info about jellyfish, and read it to your child before this activity. Staple pieces of crepe paper around a piece of yarn. Tie the yarn around the waist of a child... now they are a jellyfish.

    ~Submitted by Cheryl in NY

    Observing shells and Such

    Obtain many different kinds of shells and rocks. Allow the children to feel them, and look at them with a magnifying glass.

    ~Submitted by Cheryl in NY

    Goldfish Fun

    Tape numbers in the inside of a muffin tin, 1 to 6. Tell your child to place the appropriate number of Goldfish crackers into each "fishbowl" (the holes in the muffin tin).

    ~Submitted by Cheryl in NY

    Fill your sensory table with blue water, using meat trays, cut out fish and other sea life shapes and cover them with foil. You can color them with a permanent marker. Add some sea shells too. Attach a paper clip and fish for them with magnetic fishing poles.

    ~Submitted by Cheryl in NY

    Shell Fun

    Have on hand a wide variety of shells. Let the children sort the shells into group by kind, size, texture, etc. Have them count the number of shells in each group. Continue by asking the children to find the smallest and largest shell. Then have take turns balancing the shells in each hand to see which is heaviest and which is lightest.

    ~Submitted by Cheryl in NY

    Flying Fish Socks

    Get a large box. Paint the box blue to represent the ocean. Ask parents to send in any unmatched socks they do not want. Have the children use permanent markers to decorate the socks to resemble fish. Once the fish have been decorated, fill the socks partially with handfuls of dried beans, then secure the ends with rubber bands. Let the children take turns tossing the flying fish into the box.

    ~Submitted by Cheryl in NY

    Rainbow Fish

    Read the story or watch the movie of Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister. It is a great story about a little fish that has the most beautiful scales in the ocean and he wants all the other fish to know just how great he is. Of course, none of the other fish like him and don't want to play with him because of all this bragging. Anyway- in the end he shares his scales with the other fish and becomes much happier for doing so. After reading the story give each child a large fish shape cutout and lots of different colors of squares of construction paper. Let them cover the fish with the construction scales in a mosaic style. Ahead of time cover one side of the exact fish cutout as the children with shimmery scales. Tape these on so that they can easily be removed. Perhaps use ribbon that changes colors when the light hits it and silver wrapping paper. Cover the other side with construction paper scales. When the children are close to finishing their fish "swim" your fish (with the glittery scales showing) around the room and brag about how beautiful you are (just like the story). At the end share one of your glittery scales with each child and discuss how happy it makes you feel to share. Provide props for retelling this story in your puppet area or dramatic play area.

    ~Submitted by Cheryl in NY

    Here is an idea that I used with my classroom and everybody loved it. Put sand in the sensory tub and shovels, buckets, dump trucks, little backtrack to this adds more excitement for the child's imagination and I also added gold glitter in my sand sensory table and stirred it around makes for a great day just as if you were at the beach. Hope this is useful.... Goodbye for now.

    ~Submitted by Diana in OR

    Have a beach party (bring towels, swimsuit, sunglasses) Make fruit salad. Set up separate areas for sand with shells, pool with water, towels and picnic. Have kids draw a picture of what they saw on "their trip to the beach".

    ~Submitted by Cindy in MD

    Tactile Bag

    An activity they can do is get fish confetti and add the confetti 1/2 cup light corn syrup and blue food coloring put in a resealable Ziploc bag and they can chase the fish around in the bag. Make sure to squeeze air bubbles out.

    ~Submitted by Cheryl in NY

    Sand play

    Buy some shells in the craft section and bury the shells in the sand and let the children find them with a permanent marker you can put numbers or letters of your theme and children can tell you what is on it when they find it.

    ~Submitted by Cheryl in NY

    Dramatic Play

    Take four chairs with the backs facing outwards in rectangular shape, wrap the tinted plastic wrap (blue or green or both) around the chairs to reflect an aquarium and add under the sea accessories in the "aquarium"

    ~Submitted by Cheryl in NY
    Games

    Play pin the legs on the octopus - EVERYONE pretty much WINS!

    ~Submitted by Cheryl in NY

    Play Fish Tank

    Take a cardboard box open on one side and have the children paint the inside blue and then give each child a precut fish (or have them design their own) have the children decorate the fish with glitter, sequins, feathers, whatever is on hand. Then suspend the fish with fishing wire from the fish tank. It will look like the fish are swimming. Allow the children to add things to the tank like rocks, plants etc. To make our own aquarium, we covered our classroom windows with blue paper and the kids decorated the 'water' with fish and other sea life. When we studied sharks, we created underwater shark scenes with tempera paint.

    ~Submitted by Cheryl in NY

    Here's a great center game that we played after studying whales. We discussed that whales have poor eyesight, but they can find food on their own. (Just as we use our sense of hearing to tell where things are, whales use their sense of hearing to do the same.) Work with a partner and imagine that you are a whale. Partner A puts on a blindfold or covers his/her eyes. Partner B taps on the table in 3 different places. After each tap, Partner A points to the direction where he/she thinks the tap came from. Partner B records his/her answers by drawing a 'Good Job' whale if the tap is located ora 'Lost Whale' if the tap was not located. Then the partners' trade places and they repeat the game. My students loved playing this while I covered my eyes. They liked trying to 'stump' me!! (And they did a few times!!)

    ~Submitted by Cheryl in NY

    Going Fishing

    Make fishing poles (popsicle sticks) with magnets at the end of the string/yarn. Make fish and sea animals out of construction paper (laminate to re-use). Attach paper clips to the sea creatures. After each child has caught an animal, spend a little time identifying them.

    ~Submitted by Cheryl in NY

    Pass the shark

    Make a shark and other water animals. Make a pond in the middle of a circle (you can just put down a blue tarp or piece of material), bring all of the animals to the circle. Hold up one animal at a time, have the children identify and let each child put one animal in the pond. Then begin to pass the shark around the circle while singing (to the tune of row, row, row your boat)

    Pass, pass, pass the shark
    Pass it very fast
    Pass, pass, pass the shark
    Let's see who has it last

    The child holding the shark puts it in the pond and catches an animal-begin again.
    Return to Page 1 or go to Page 3 of Beach Theme
    Where would you like to go now?
    Graphics on this page by....

    site closed
    Copyright 2003 - 2019 * Jana's Web Design * All Rights Reserved