Preschool Lesson Plan - The Ocean

This is a lesson plan I did with Suzy waaay back in September. I thought I might post one every now and then. If nothing else, I know at least Suzy's grandmothers are interested!

The Ocean

Monday- Family Day, Nate's day off (no school)

Tuesday
Bible- Bible story and catechism with Daddy in the evening

French - watching French cartoons about the ocean and beach, learning names of some ocean animals. (French is my least successful subject with her. It's embarrassing to even chronicle this in a blog. Please never ask her the name of something in French. She doesn't care. At all.)

Physical- Dancing together

Art - making a paper plate fish

Reading/Cognitive - Reading ocean books (Everyday. She especially liked Dr. Seuss's Cetation Station. Go ahead and ask her what a cetation is. She cared about that!)
-Learning ocean songs. She loved this one, to the tune of The Wheels On the Bus:
"The sharks in the ocean go chomp chomp chomp,
Chomp chomp chomp, chomp chomp chomp,
All through the sea...
The crabs in the ocean go pinch pinch pinch, ect
The octopus in the ocean goes squirt squirt squirt, ect
The sea horse in the ocean rocks back and forth, back and forth, ect
The whales in the ocean go spout spout spout...
The fish in the ocean go swish swish swish..."
(She still asks to sing it sometimes. She likes to add things now that don't belong in the ocean, to see what I come up with. The car in the ocean goes glug glug glug, the bike in the ocean doesn't go far, doesn't go far...)
Math/Activities - Fish tanagram mats (she only did this for about 2 minutes, but I should try it again now that she's older)
-Sea animal die-cuts for sorting
-Examining shells
-Sand pudding ( A cute idea. You take vanilla pudding, and then put finely crushed vanilla wafers on top, so when you give it to the child, it looks like a cup of sand. Except Suzy doesn't like vanilla wafers, crushed or not, so she didn't eat it. I'm beginning to regret choosing this lesson plan to share. But I've typed too much now to change it!)

Wednesday
Bible- Bible story and catechism with Daddy in the evening

French - watching French cartoons about the ocean and beach, learning names of some ocean animals.

Physical - Running outside.

Art - wax paper fish. (Oh great, another educational failure. This project was way to teacher-driven for a preschooler. Actually, I did the whole thing, so it was pretty worthless. She just watched me, which was not the goal. I thought Suzy could shred the crayons, but she couldn't. If you have an older child, this is what it is: you take crayon shavings and place them on a piece of wax paper. Place another piece of waxpaper on top. Put an old towel on your ironing board, and put the paper on top of that. This is experience speaking. I have melted red crayon on my ironing board cover. With your iron hot, pass it over the paper, close, but not touching. Otherwise all your colors will swirl together and make brown. When the crayons have melted, let it cool, then draw fish shapes and cut out. You could also do flowers. I won't, but you could!)
Reading/Cognitive- Coloring an illustration to Rub-aDub-Dub rhyme, reading the rhyme.
-Ocean animal memory game

Math/Activities - Sink or Float game (This was fun. During Suzy's bath, I gave her a variety of items for her to drop in to see if they sink or float. Easy and educational!
- Octopus for lunch (I made an octopus out of a hotdog. Leaving about an inch and a half uncut, you cut it lengthwise so that it has eight little legs. Then you plop it in some boiling water until the legs curl up. Put it on a plate and add two little ketchup eyes.)

Thursday
Bible- Bible story and catechism with Daddy in the evening

French - watching French cartoons about the ocean and beach, learning names of some ocean animals.

Physical- Dancing together

Art - handprint octopus (This was a cute one. I painted her hand, except for her thumb, and then she made a print on blue paper. We did this several times. After they were dry, we added eyes with a marker, but gluing on google eyes would be cute too.

Reading/Cognitive - Rainbow Fish story re-telling. (We read Rainbow Fish, and then I gave Suzy some paper and crayons. I asked her to draw something she remembered from the story. We've done this with several books and even poems. She always enjoys it)

Math/Activities- Tuna sandwiches cut into a fish shape

Friday
*Story hour at the library* (Then we spend another hour getting books in the library.)