Under the sea!

We have been learning about the layers of the ocean. Starting at the top “Sunlight Zone” to the very bottom “Hadal Zone”, where it is dark and cold. We visited each level and learned about the animals living in the warmer zones. The sea creatures that can survive at the very bottom of the sea were the most exciting to study. To demonstrate the ocean’s layers, each was represented by gradient blue where the top layer is the lightest and the darkest is at the bottom. 

We extended the lesson to color mixing. On our water shelf, we have color experimenting which is when students carefully transfer water tinted with color dye from one small jar to another with a long pipette. This strengthens fine motor control and concentration. We noticed our younger friends simply loved sucking up the water in the pipette and carefully squeezing it out into the other container. Kindergarteners discovered new colors. They observed the color becomes more intense when adding more dye and darker in shade.

In Spanish, we worked on creating the ocean layers on felt-sheets with shades of blue. Then, we sorted sea creature figurines into their zones. This was a very fun activity and easy to extend to our food chain song, “Pececito Nadando en el Agua.” Further research included “explore it” trays with a variety of ocean books, seashells, sea stars, shark teeth, and even a blow fish skeleton!