aquarium bottles

I think this might be my favorite activity of the whole year - and my students as well.  I came up with this idea the night before preschool at about 10:30.  But I was so excited about it I had to do it!  So I ran to the store and stayed up till midnight getting every thing ready.

I found these bottles at our grocery store in the juice isle.  They are a dollar each.  I have been waiting for them to go on sale (perfect for our pumpkin discovery bottles) but they haven't.  So I splurged and spent a dollar on each.  I wanted to put fish in that would "swim".  I tried several options but they either sunk (real plastic fish) - or just floated on the top and you couldn't see them (foam).  Then it came to me - water balloons!  I tried one and it worked perfect.  But it didn't look quite like a fish.  I added googly eyes with super glue.  Once I got the eyes on though I didn't realize that that tiny pocket of air in the eyes would make the fish float to the top.  But they just look like they are eating - so it was ok.

Here was my set up - I had to really facilitate the making of these - so I didn't get any pictures of the process - but we used a funnel to put some aquarium rock is.  Then each child got to put in three fish.  I made them small enough that they could go in the whole without copping - but they did have to be carefully pushed.  We did have 2 pop - but that was ok - just part of the process.  Then we sprinkled in some glitter for their food - then filled it up with blue water - and glued on the lid.

I made one the night before I drew fins on one to see if it looked good - it did not.

Here they are.  

One child's didn't pop - but it got a whole and started squiring out water - he still wanted it it because it was his "baby fish" - once we put the water in the pressure from the water kept the fish from actually "dying" - so it really ended up being a baby fish - it was so cute.

water beads for sensory ocean play

I put some water beads into some water for some sensory play during our ocean unit.  I bought some blue colored ones so they could be seen in the water - this way I thought they looked like fish eggs.  I added a lot of things to scoop, and pour, and fill, plus some fish.

This was the day I was helping all morning at the sponge painting table - so I didn't get any other pictures - but the kids loved the water play and especially the sensory feeling of the water beads.  They are always a big hit.

Dramatic play: camping and fishing

For our fish unit I decided to set up a camp ground with some fishing.  I took a lot of other pictures but for some reason a whole days worth of pictures got erased on my camera.  So I am missing a lot of "details" in this play area.  

For example - there are blankets, sleeping bags, and pillows in the tent.  I put some play food in the cooler like hot dogs, apples, fried chicken, etc.  I bought that tackle box and bought some of those red and white floating bobs you put on your fishing poles and some bait looking things that didn't have any hooks on them.

On the first day I put a laundry boat in the middle of our pond to be used as a boat.

After that I took it out and they didn't seem to miss it.

Also you saw in a previous post that after the first week I added numbers to the fish I put some big dice out there - to roll and fish the right number.  This dramatic play was great because it expanded our fish unit, but also lent itself to so much more dramatic play - especially family play which my kids love but put them in a new situation rather than just a kitchen.

sand and seashell play dough

I made some white play dough and then kneaded in a lot of sand so give it a beach like texture.  I also put sand on the table for them to add more.  I also included sea shells for their play and also to make prints.

sponge painting

I made my own fish shapes out of dish sponges.

I added some blue tinted water to paint their ocean first.

I never came up with a great way for them to clean their sponges in between use.  At first i added a towel - but they needed water - so then I added a shallow lid with some water - but it had to be changed out a lot.  I bowl of water would have worked well - but I did nto want to introduce that much water to risk watering down the paint and not having a great sponge painting expierence.  I will need to do some more playing around with this to find a good process.

snow

we had a lot of snow one day (which we have not had a lot of this winter). So I brought some into our sensory bin again.  This tiem I added water colors with paint brushes and colored water with pipettes.  

fish math

Here are some of our fish math activites through out our unit.

Pattern blocks:

Counting and matching numbers:

Magnetic fishing with dice for some one to one correspondence.

Adding and subtracting with colored gold fish and our "oceans"

3 red plus 3 yellow equals ?

Bar graphing our gold fish

bubble wrap and shiny fish

At our art center one day we had a pretty elaborate art activity going.  We were making and decorating tin-foil fish and then making an ocean by painting with bubble wrap.

Step one wrap the card board fish in tin foil (I cut these out of cereal boxes).


Step two decorate it with Sharpies (you have to use permanent or it just wipes off).  The kids LOVED using the sharpie markers!

Step three paint your paper using bubble wrap.

Step four glue your fish to your ocean.

I can't believe I didn't take pictures of the final products!  They were so beautiful I hung them in our room for a few weeks.  Each child made several and put 2 or 3 fish in on each paper.