Tweets From Kindergarten: My newly found Ocean Theme resources!

Over the last 2 weeks of school almost everything we did in class was ocean related. Even the graduation was ocean themed!

Many resources and activities we did, came from my ocean file from prior years. However, this year I came across two new activities that I will definitely try again next year. I guess I can say they are going into the ocean file!

The first idea came with a fantastic book I found in our school library: Good Thing You Are Not an Octopus, by Julie Markes.

Click here to see book description in Amazon

Once in while I come across something unknown to me, like this book, that proves to be such a great resource because of the ideas and creative writing it inspired in students, even the most reluctant ones. The book presents different animals, stating the reason why it is a good thing the boy in the story is not any of the portrayed animals. For instance, the book states that if you don’t like to get dressed in the morning, it’s a good thing you’re not an octopus because if you were one, you would have eight legs to put into your pants. This funny perspective not only generated lots of giggles while I was reading it aloud to my class, but also provided a great opportunity for creative writing.

The writing assignment was to think about any animal and explain why it was a good thing not to be such animal, following more or less the premise of the book. This was such a fun writing activity, that most students wanted to keep writing about this topic. The sharing of our writing was filled with laughter and I was impressed! One of my students wrote something like this: "Good thing I am not a chicken because I would have to lay an egg, and then my butt would hurt." I was floored laughing! I’m still laughing as I write about it! I'm really going to miss these kids! So, you see why I had to make a note to myself about including this book in my planning next year.

The other activity is an ocean book we decided to make with a colleague, in which each ocean creature is represented with the students’ hand prints. I must warn you, making the prints was a challenge at times, especially keeping track of who was absent to make the print in another opportunity.