The kids each got a few scoops of wet sand and they played with it for awhile.
Then we put all of our sand together and made a "sand castle."
After playing in the sand, we read "Commotion in the Ocean" by Giles Andreae. This book has a little blurp on 15 or so different ocean animals. The illustrations are darling and it is a rhyming book too.
We then played "Ocean Animals Matching" We used the game that I printed from this website: 1+1+1=1 (http://www.1plus1plus1equals1.com/Preschool_Pack_In_the_girly_sea2.pdf) She has lots of other cute stuff on there.
Now it is time to put together our "Beach I Spy Bag." (I had already sewn the bags together leaving a small hole in one side to put the "beach things.") Each kid got 10 items to put in their bag (most of the things were buttons I purchased from JoAnns Craft Store and then I got a basket of real seashells from the Dollar Tree and a Prehistoric Shark Toob I got at JoAnn's.)
Once all the "beach things" were in the bags we put about 2 1/2 cups of Hartz 100% Natural Corn Cob to hide the items. Then I sewed the hole closed and we attached the "what to look for" tag to the bag with some yarn.
We had Shark Fruit Snacks
We listened to "Fidgety Fish" by Ruth Galloway
We played several other games from this website: Homeschool Creations (http://homeschoolcreations.com/pondpreschoolpack.html)
We learned the song "Octopus" from the "10 Carrot Diamond" CD by Charlotte Diamond.
Last thing before going home, we read "The Three Little Fish and The Big Bad Shark" by Ken Geist
The smile on their faces tells me they had a great time. We will have the I Spy bags for years to come.
