🐙🐋🐠 Ocean Animals
I hope you enjoy the Ocean Animals Unit Study Lesson Plan! Here is a quick overview:
Ocean Animals Guided Writing
Ocean Snacktivity
Ocean Animal Riddle Matching
Research an Ocean Animal
Go Fish Addition
Goldfish Number Bonds
Draw a Coral Reef
Ocean Animal 3-Part Cards
Learn the Ocean Zones
LEGO Coral Reef
Identify the World’s Oceans
Ocean Habitat Sensory Play
And more...
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Enjoy! Tiff
🐙🐋🐠 Ocean Animals
Ocean Animals - Guided Writing
Writing can be intimidating for young learners. Help make it fun with this Ocean Animals themed writing pack. Learn about the difference between vertebrates and invertebrates, discover different types of fish, marine mammals, ocean reptiles, crustaceans, and mollusks. Practice handwriting while learning new vocabulary words.
Go to the Ocean!
There is no better way to learn about the ocean than to experience it first hand. Go to a tide pool, aquarium or beach to meet some ocean creatures for yourself!
On our latest tide pool adventure, we found a hermit crab. We named him “Mr. Tickles” because he tickles you when he crawls. We made sure to release him to the ocean after we studied him for a bit.
Ocean Snacktivity
Food always gets my girls interested in a new subject. I love making art out of food. My favorite were probably these “crabwiches”. Just get some mini croissants, ham or turkey and cheese then add eyes on some toothpicks to make them crabs.
Goldfish graham cracker aquariums were probably my girls favorite to make. But we also did a fun beach scene and cheddar cheese and ham fishes that made lunch extra fun.
English Language Arts
Ocean Animal Riddle Matching
These riddles are perfect for a literacy center or morning basket! Your students will love reading and solving these riddles. Each riddle includes a few facts about each ocean animal that help you figure out which animal it is. Includes an answer key so students can self check their matches.
Research an Ocean Animal
Dive deep into researching your favorite ocean animal. Use this awesome free printable to identify KWLs, take research notes, make a rough draft, record vocabulary and document your animal’s life cycle.
This printable is designed for grades 1-5, so just scale appropriately for your student(s).
Reading Lessons
There are only two resources I like to make sure I include on each week’s lesson plan, Prodigies Music (below) and Teach Your Child To Read in 100 Easy Lessons. This book has thousands of 5 star reviews on Amazon for a reason. It’s an effective, no-prep way to teach reading. We have completed this program and the results have been amazing, my daughter can pretty much read anything.
The lessons are short (15-20min), easy to grasp and sequential. The entire lesson is scripted and color coded so it’s fool proof, just read the words in pink. Their claim is that after completing all 100 lessons your child will be able to read at a 2nd grade level!
Math - Addition Facts
Go Fish Addition
Practice addition facts with this adorable printable game. Just cut out the ocean animals and add a paper clip to each one. Then create a fishing pole with a dowel, some string and a magnet. Then, you’re ready to fish!
For younger students, catch all the fish first, then add the total. For older students, encourage them to keep a running total of their points.
Goldfish Number Bonds
You can be sure your students will want to practice addition (and even some subtraction) with this Goldfish number bond mat and recording sheet.
Just grab a handful of Goldfish crackers and place them on the circle on the mat. Then break up the whole into two parts and record the number bonds on the second sheet.
I recommend getting the colors version of the crackers to help better illustrate the number bonds.
Art and Music
Draw a Coral Reef
By: Art For Kids Hub
Watch your coral reef come to life as you practice handwriting skills. This amazing step-by-step video will teach you how to draw things in perspective and add layers to your coral reef.
Prodigies Music
Do…Re…Mi…
We love Prodigies! Prodigies Music is simply an incredible curriculum for teaching music. Ages 2-5 is the critical time to develop a life-long sense of pitch. Their curriculum is designed to develop a sense of pitch with easy to use desk bells that don’t require any tuning. They also teach piano, recorder and ukulele. Their subscription includes everything you can think of 450+ videos, worksheets, free bell mats, sheet music all color coded so it’s super easy to learn. If you don’t have an instrument they have a bunch of rhythm focused content that doesn’t require an instrument. They even have a free bell app that I use with my toddler when my oldest is practicing.
They have a free trial and discounts for annual memberships! Great deal! You can even check out some of their videos for free on YouTube.
Science - Ocean Animals
Ocean Animal 3-Part Cards
By: 1+1+1=1
Learn to identify different ocean animals with these Montessori 3-part or Nomenclature cards. The cards include real images of the ocean animals and their names.
Learn the Ocean Zones
Explore the five ocean zones and learn about what life is like for ocean animals that live in the Sunlight Zone, Twilight Zone, Midnight Zone, Abyss and Trench. Also learn about different types of oceanographers and what they study.
Then make the ocean zones in a jar, using this easy recipe with ingredients you may already have on hand.
LEGO Coral Reef
Everything is awesome when it’s built with LEGOs! Use whatever pieces you have to make your very own coral reef. We just happened to have a bunch of sea related pieces from miscellaneous sets, but be creative with what you have on hand.
Social Studies
Identify the World’s Oceans
By: Imagine Our Life
Use these great ocean 3-part cards and control chart to learn how to identify each of the five oceans. You can even match the ocean cards to a globe or atlas.
Sensory Play
Ocean Animals Sensory Play
My girls love playing with water. Any bin I create that has water is always played with more than others. And it’s so easy to set-up!
I just threw some aquarium rocks on the bottom, added water, ocean animal figurines, and water beads. Then I found these awesome 3-part cards that match the Safari Ocean Toob. They played with this for hours and really enjoyed matching the ocean animals to the cards.
Filler: water, aquarium pebbles
Supplies: Safari Ltd. Ocean Toob, Ocean Animals 3-Part Cards, water beads and stackable cups.
Ocean Habitat Sensory Play
Create your own ocean habitat with items from nature. Or if you don’t live near the beach, bring the beach to you!
Just add sand to the bottom and then add anything you would find at the ocean: seashells, coral, seaweed, driftwood, etc. We lucked out and happened to find a few crab exoskeletons.
Filler: sand
Supplies: seashells, drift wood, coral, bamboo tongs
Physical Education
Under the Sea Yoga Adventure
Go on a yoga adventure under the sea with Squish the Fish, then join Jamie in the Deep Sea Brain Breaker.
Book List
Books We Love
- The Little Kids First Big Book of the Ocean (National Geographic)
- Clam I Am (Cat In The Hat’s Learning Library)
- What’s It Like to be a Fish? (Let’s Read and Find Out Science)
- Wish For a Fish (Cat In The Hat’s Learning Library)
Don’t have the budget or space to get more books? The library has been pretty great for us so far, but they are sometimes out of the more popular books. One place that you can always count on to find great books is Epic Books! Try Epic Basic for FREE! You can find awesome read to me books for free, Unlimited plan includes access to 40,000+ books!
Know of any other awesome Ocean Animals themed resources? Please comment below!
Do you know anyone else that would enjoy these free weekly lesson plans? Get them on the list!
