From fish sensory, all the way to coral reef sensory activities, teaching students about the ocean is important beyond their years. Provide your students with engaging lessons using an ocean sensory bin, colorful shells, baby whales, and much more to help them understand the ocean’s effect on them and their effect on the ocean. A collection of ocean activities should also be hiding in the back of your closet, thankfully we’ve done the digging for you. Here are 28 kid-favorite ocean activities.
Preschool Ocean Activities
1. Chickpeas Ocean Matching
An ocean-themed sensory bin can be so helpful for students to discover ocean life. Using flashcards have students search through the chickpeas to find the proper sea animals. They will have so much fun with this task.
Learn More: Edu Toys
2. Spaghetti Ocean Zones
Being exposed to the ocean ecosystem at a young age can help spark curiosity. A super exciting ocean-themed sensory play bucked displaying the ocean zones will help students to understand realize that the ocean is much bigger than they can see!
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3. Prewriting Ocean Activity
A blue ocean sensory bag can be used to practice the different letters. Use it in stations to enhance your student’s letter matching and prewriting skills.
Learn More: Maddie Jay Preschool Play
4. Under the Sea Cotton Swabs
A fun craft for kids about the ocean is this under the sea cotton swabs project. Students can choose the sea animals they want and then paint them using cotton swabs!
Learn More: Greenhouse Montessori
5. Under the Sea Seahorse Craft
Making this tropical fish out of beautiful sparkles and majestic materials will get your students engaged with the gorgeous ocean and make them come back wanting more.
Learn More: It’s Preschool Time
6. Sandy Alphabet Hunt
Building motor skills is very important in the early years of student development. While discovering all that comes with learning the alphabet also help students discover how beautiful the ocean is with this super engaging and fun alphabet shell hunt!
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7. Ocean Rescue
This ocean rescue activity will help students to save marine life. Using scissors and maybe a box with ocean friends, students will be able to save off of their ocean friends!
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8. Shells of Many Shapes, Sizes, Textures Sensory Bin
An ocean sensory bin filled with something as simple as water and shells is bound to keep your kiddos busy for hours. With the different shapes, sizes, and textures of shells you might even be equally engaged!
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9. Preschool Ocean Play
Something like this can be filled with ocean Jell-O! Students will love getting messy and getting their ocean friends out of the jell-O!
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10. Ocean Themed Worksheets
Popular ocean activities can include both our beloved sea animals and some letter and vocabulary practice too. This site has a bunch of great worksheets for young learners to practice spelling and writing. They’ll love the cute illustrations and the chance to practice their letter formation!
Learn More: Kid Pid
11. Potatoe Masher Sea Turtles
Fin-tastic fish crafts, like this cute paper craft, revolve around making sea turtles out of potato mashers! Don’t stop there though, have your students create any sea animal they want!
Learn More: Happy Toddler Playtime
12. CD Fish Craft
Making colorful fish out of CDs can be so much fun for students! Not only are the CDs themselves colorful and shiny, but students can also draw their own designs on the fish with paint. They will love this activity and will love displaying their ocean craft in the classroom.
Learn More: Imagination Tree
13. Read & Save
Your kiddos will learn all about saving the oceans in this whimsical activity! Begin by immersing them in tales or educational books about ocean animals before challenging them to pick out plastic from an ocean-themed sensory bin.
Learn More: Instagram
14. Dive In & Explore Through Book Power
The power of books should never be underestimated. Reading is one of the most engaging activities in the classroom. Reading books like this one can teach us so many different things. Have students make a whole-class anchor chart about all they know at the end. Find this book online and make it the perfect online ocean activity this summer!
Learn More: Kiddie Kraffts
15. Shell Crafts
Colored shells can make any craft even more beautiful! Help students to paint seashells and glue them onto different sea creatures to make beautiful artwork. Liven your dark aquarium shells in your fishbowl with your students extra painted shells.
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16. Ocean Zones and Marine Food Chain
Learning about the ocean ecosystem is super fun for students and beneficial for our planet. This ocean-themed picture helps students locate and visualize the different oceanic zones. Keep it displayed in the classroom for students to constantly reference!
Learn More: Craft Galore
17. Sea Creature Rescue!
Popular ocean activities often include rescuing our beloved sea animals. Freezing them in ice is an easy way to get students to work together to find the best way to rescue all of the animals. Not only teaching them about love for marine life, but also collaboration to solve problems.
Learn More: Maddie Jay Preschool Play
18. Virtual Ocean Field Trips
Online ocean activities can be super important in the classroom. Field trips to the ocean aren’t always easy or accessible, thankfully we are able to virtually tour just about anywhere in the world. Take a trip through a beautiful ocean scene with these best ocean webcams!
Learn More: The Haphazard Traveler
19. How Do Sharks Float?
Fun ocean activities often involve fun resources. A great activity for students to your child about density is asking the question “How do Sharks Float?”. This is a fun activity, especially if your child loves sharks! Make a pretend fish bowl for this experiment.
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20. Create the Layers of the Ocean
Create the layers of the ocean with this glorious ocean activity. Work together as a group or have students work in pairs to create these beautiful jars showcasing the many wonders of the ocean.
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21. Ocean Life Density Experiment
A great child science experiment is all about ocean life density! Create this jar filled with blue water to enhance your child’s understanding of density and why the ocean is so dense. Use fish tank pebbles and other marine life plastic toys with this experiment.
Learn More: Natural Beach Living
22. Floating, Recycled Sea Turtles
Green sea turtles are some of the most exotic and majestic animals in the ocean. They are also very well-known throughout classrooms. Making recycled sea turtles is a great way to both teach about recycling and make a craft that looks like actual sea turtles!
Learn More: Babies to Bookworms
23. Recycled Fish
Don’t stop your recycling lessons with the green sea turtles craft! Try making these tropical fish out of recycled water bottles. A great activity for children to create their own colorful fish and maybe even create a bulletin board fishbowl display!
Learn More: Reuse, Grow, Enjoy
24. Ocean in a Jar
Create an ocean ecosystem in a jar! Your beloved children will love creating this. Try reading a book or watching a short video about the ocean ecosystem. Check for understanding by using decorated paper to create popular ocean activities like this!
Learn More: Design Dazzle
25. Ocean Recycling Activity
Another great ocean-themed sensory play bucket that will teach the importance of recycling and cleaning up our garbage! Keeping our ocean ecosystem clean is so important. Teach students through this ocean sensory bin.
Learn More: Momday Mornings
26. Rainbow Fish Weaving
The most famous colorful fish of all: our beautiful friend – Rainbowfish. Rainbowfish is a story that teaches about so much more than just ocean animals. Take your students on a journey of kindness through the ocean ecosystem and make an adorable colored paper tropical fish craft.
Learn More: The Simple Living Mama
27. Oil Spill Activity
This ocean-themed oil spill activity will help to teach children the importance of fostering our ocean ecosystem. A water sensory activity to engage students in cleaning up after a horrible oil spill. Use paper plates and other resources like toilet paper rolls to create it!
Learn More: More Time 2 Teach
28. Ocean Zones in a Jar
This exciting water activity is great for upper grades who are studying ocean zones. This is the perfect way to give students an engaging visual using plain drinking water and color additives.
Learn More: I Can Teach My Child
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