Learning about the Ocean: Lesson Plan and Mini Aquarium Acivity
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We have another fun one for you today! We recently did a whole lesson on the coral reef! The girls had an awesome time learning factoids about the fish and plants that typically live in the coral reef as well as general ocean facts. Sometimes homeschool lessons can become a bit routine, so in order to break up the monotony, for this lesson we did a co-op learning day with some of the girls’ friends. Learning with friends is a great way to mix things up and it will surely add some additional fun to your next home school lesson. You don’t even have to teach anything new or do an activity. Sometimes, just by having other kids take part in a daily lesson, can really make your kids day while making them that much more eager to learn.
But let’s get on with the blog so you too can start making aquariums with your little ones. When I did this lesson, I didn’t jump right into making the aquariums. Even when I do activities, I like to start off with an actual lesson first. With doing this I find that my kids are a lot more attentive because they know something fun is coming. First, we watched some fun and informational YouTube videos. One of them taught the kids fun facts about the ocean and the other was a cool song to learn the name of the 5 oceans. After each video I gave the kids a mini quiz to see exactly what they learned.
I also created a couple of worksheets to go along with the lesson. The first was an ocean animal worksheet. In order to complete this worksheet, the kids were supposed to circle all the animals that can be found inside the ocean. The second worksheet was an ocean animal math worksheet. My girls still need a bit more practice with simple addition, so these worked out perfectly! If you would like to get these free worksheets to add to your lesson, feel free to click the link below.
After we got all of the learning out the way, it was on to the aquariums! This activity was pretty simple, and you can find all of your supplies at your local Walmart or on Amazon. I will say, if you have younger kids like I do, I would try to purchase some clear plastic containers like these instead of the glass mason jars. Thankfully we didn’t have anything break, but I could feel myself tense up every time the kids picked up the aquariums lol.
The supplies that you will need are:
- Glass Mason Jars (Or Plastic Jar with twist cap)
- Aquarium Gravel
- Bottle Water
- Blue Food Coloring
- Aquarium Plants (If the plants you purchase are too tall you can always trim the tops)
- Plastic Ocean Animals
- Paper Bowls or Plates
The first thing I did was prep the “ocean water”. I like for my kids to be as hands on as possible when we do activities. However, they are also in kindergarten, so activities can get real messy real fast. lol So anytime I can make my life easier, I try to do that. Keeping this idea in mind, I added a couple of drops of blue food coloring into separate plastic water bottles. That way each kid could have their own bottle and fill up their mason jars independently. I would also recommend having a couple of extra bottles of water just in case. In some of the kids bottles I added a little too much food coloring. I wanted to make sure they were able to see all of their ocean animals and adding the additional water diluted some of the blue.
I gave each kid their mason jars and let them pick out their aquarium plants to place in the bottom of the jars. I then poured the aquarium rocks into paper plates so that the kids could scoop them out and into the glass jars. It is important to make sure you add the plants first so that the aquarium rocks will help the plants stand up and keep them sturdy.
Next I let the kids pick out which ocean animals they wanted to add to their aquariums. After they placed their animals into the aquarium I gave each kid the water bottles I prepped and they poured the water into the jars.
Once the water was in the jars, that’s it! I tightened the lids, and they were done! I quizzed them again on some coral reef facts as they watched their ocean animals float around the aquarium. We ended the homeschool day by having goldfish crackers as a snack and watching Finding Neemo.
All and all the girls and their friends had a blast learning new ocean facts and spending the day with their friends. Leave a comment below if you tried this activity. Let us know what other fun ocean activities you and your little ones have done!
