Fish - Ocean - Beach - Water - Storytime

With the variety of watery picture books out there, this storytime could be adapted to suit many different aquatic themes.   Here are a few suggestions you can use to adapt for your own "Under the Sea" theme:

BOOKS:

Somewhere in the Ocean by Jennifer Ward :  A counting book in rhyme presents various marine animals and their children, from a mother manatee and her little calf one to a mother octopus and her little babies ten. Numerals are hidden in each illustration.

Way Down Deep in the Deep Blue Sea by Jan Peck : A child explores the treasures of the deep blue sea from the safety of a bathtub.

Hooray for Fish! by Lucy Cousins : Little Fish has all sorts of fishy friends in his underwater home, but loves one of them most of all.

The Pout-Pout Fish by Deborah Diesen : The pout-pout fish believes he only knows how to frown, even though many of his friends suggest ways to change his expression, until one day a fish comes along that shows him otherwise.

Swimmy  by Leo Lionni : A little black fish in a school of red fish figures out a way of protecting them all from their natural enemies.

Wow! Ocean! by Robert Neubecker : Izzy, raised in the mountains, visits the ocean on a hot summer day.

SONGS:

A SEA SONG

(sung to the tune of “The Wheels on the Bus”)
The fish in the ocean go swish, swish, swish, (Make swimming motions).
Swish, swish, swish,
Swish, swish, swish.
The fish in the ocean go swish, swish, swish
All through the sea!
The lobsters…snip, snip, snip (Make pinching motions with fingers.)
The sharks…chomp, chomp, chomp (Chomp with your arms)
The stingray…flap, flap, flap (Move arms in slow, flying motions.)
The crabs…skit, scat, skit (Run in place.)



FIVE LITTLE FISHES

(Tune: 5 Little Monkeys Swinging in a Tree)

Five little fishes, Swimming in the sea.
Teasing Mr. Shark, You can`t catch me!
Along comes Mr. Shark, As quiet as can be... Snap!


(Repeat with:)
Four little fishes, etc...
Three little fishes, etc...
Two little fishes, etc...
One little fish, etc...

 
FELT BOARD:
 
I was looking around for felt board ideas to use with my fishy storytime and happened upon this website:  http://www.childcareland.com/feltboard.html  They had a GREAT idea for doing a colorful fish version of "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" by Bill Martin.   Instead of felt, I used 9 different colors of craft foam for my fish and attached velcro to the back of each.  I thought it would be neat to include a "rainbow" fish, but didn't have a chance to get to the store to pick up any multi-colored foam sheets!  Check out the Childcareland.com website for tips on how to go about doing this creative felt board activity.
 
 
CRAFT:
 

There are literally hundreds of fish/sea creature craft ideas out there.  Just google to see for yourself!   I wanted to do something a little bit more special and lasting for this activity, so I settled up on a paper plate "aquarium".  It took a lot of prep time, but was well worth it!

 

Here is a basic list of what you will need:

 

2 paper plates (any size - I used 8")

plastic wrap (I used sandwich bags)

crayons, foam, paint or other decorative items

scissors

glue or staples or double sided tape

I'm all for adapting crafts to what I have on hand.  For the version of this project that I saw on the internet, they used tempra paints and painted the "inside" plate blue and then decorated the outside plate with paint as well.  Alright, I needed to do this project with about 40 kids, so I had to find an alternative!  Thankfully blue plates can be found most anywhere and the light color I chose was fine for the "ocean". 

You need 2 plates for each aquarium.  To prep for this project, you need to cut out the center of one plate.  I found an exacto knife works best.  You then need to cover the hole you just created with some sort of plastic wrap.  I had a lot sandwich bags on hand, so we cut them apart and attached them with double sided tape (you could glue them down, but I didn't have a place to set out 40 plates to dry!). 

The solid plate is your ocean scene - have your child draw and color various sea creatures onto the plate or attach stickers to decorate.  I found that markers do not work on the colored plates!  We also used bent and curled pipe cleaners for seaweed that we taped down.  Once that plate is all decorated, attach the front plate with the "glass" (plastic).   Again, I used double sided tape, but you could glue or staple it.

TIP:  If your plates can be totally sealed with glue or hot glue (including the plastic 'glass') it would be really cool to add a bit of sparkly glitter inside the fish bowl!