Sweet Smiles Preschool: Ocean Dramatic Play

On Thursday we learned all about whales!

I introduced the kids to our new letter W friend...

During circle time we passed around the hands-on letter W and traced it with our finger as we said, "W-w-w-whale."

We acted out the song...

"Big, big, big blue whale,

swimming in the sea.

(Lie on stomach and pretend to swim.)

Stand up tall and then you fall,

(Stand up then fall down on back.)

splashing playfully!"

(Pretend to splash around.)

(Sung to the tune of "Row Your Boat.")

The kids liked standing up and falling down during this song!

I taught the kids that some whale's teeth are baleen...they resemble a comb or brush. They use the bristly teeth to filer food (krill) from the water. We passed around a toothbrush and felt its bristles.

I put our letter W card in a pan with sand. The kids used the toothbrush to brush at the sand and trace the letter. I left this out all day for the kids to play with.

We also practiced writing the letter W in our journals...

The kids were encouraged to draw a whale and complete the sentence, "The whale is..."

"The whale is big and hungry!"

We learned that whales are mammals and have lungs, like humans. They breathe air in and out through a blowhole. We made a whale for a craft today...

First I gave the kids a straw from our art supplies and asked them to experiment seeing what things they could move by blowing at it through a straw. The Kleenexes moved a lot!

Next, the kids punched out their whale shape, and added an eye. I squirted their choice in paint color on their whale and they tried moving the paint by blowing through the straw.

If a child had difficulty moving the paint, I encouraged them to move the paint around with the straw (using it as a paintbrush).

When we were done, we added the straw and a small piece of tissue paper to the top to make a blowhole!

I showed the kids one piece of paper and told them it was roughly one foot long. I asked the kids how big they think a whale could be. The biggest whale, the blue whale, can be up to 90 feet long. The smallest whales are 13-15 feet long. I taped together 14 pieces of paper and explained that this is around the size of a small whale (beluga, for example). We laid down next to the paper and compared ourselves to the length of the beluga whale. I encouraged the kids to imagine that the biggest whale can be up to 8 times this size! That means a big blue whale could not even fit inside the daycare!

I explained that whales have to hold their breath underwater. They can stay underwater for a long time before coming up for air. Mother Goose Time provided us with a "Hold Your Breath" chart. We counted as one friend at a time held their breath. We wrote our friends name next to the number of seconds they held their breath. We repeated this 3 times and compared our results. I also made sure to explain to the kids to never hold their breath too long or they could pass out.

We LOVED dancing to the song, "Big Blue Whale" on our Ocean Commotion CD! The kids listened to the words in the music and made up a movement for each:

- Flap your tail.

- Open mouth wide.

- Jump out of the water.

- Take a deep breath.

- Swim.

We colored matching ocean creatures in our math workbook...

We played Memory with rhyming words!

This photo makes me laugh! The kids always like to cut apart their Memory cards somewhere outside of the table room. They like to find a spot all on their own...even if that means under a table! Ha!

These were our books for today. The Whale of a Tale! book was a little too much content for preschoolers. The Baby Whales Drink Milk book was perfect!

It was a rainy day outside, so it was a perfect time to set up our new ocean themed dramatic play setup!!!!! I don't know who gets more excited about these things, me or the kids!

I taped blue paper on the wall and added ocean creatures...