My Fun with Toddlers series includes crafts, games, songs, rhymes and books tied into a theme. These can be used as lesson plans for a toddler class, preschool curriculum, or for parents to have fun with little ones at home. A beach or ocean theme offers lots of fun opportunities.

Science Activities

Field Trips. If you live near a beach, go there! If there’s an aquarium nearby, go there. Or go to a pet store, what I call the “small animal zoo” to observe fish and other aquatic creatures. You may even find great tropical fish tanks at restaurants or in hospital lobbies. Or, search for “virtual field trip aquarium” and you’ll find lots of options, including Seattle Aquarium.

Sink and Float Experiments. In the bathtub, or a large tub of water, let your child experiment with a wide variety of objects. What sinks? What floats? Help them notice any patterns (e.g. these metal things sink, these plastic things float, heavy things sink…).

Explore Shells. Offer a collection of shells for your child to explore. Talk about their colors, shapes, textures. Count them. Sort them.

Ice Excavation. Fill a container with water, drop in sand, shells, and plastic fish and freeze. Put it in a tub and give your child water to pour over it to melt the ice. (If your child won’t eat the salt, you can also give them a salt shaker to sprinkle salt on it to hasten the melting process.) Photos from littlebins.

Sensory Activities

Ocean Sensory Bag. Get a gallon size ziplock (freezer bags are even sturdier than regular bags). Fill it with water, or with blue shower gel or clear hair gel from the dollar store. Add plastic fishor shells or glass stones, then close the bag, and tape it closed. Set it on a table (or tape it to a window) and a baby or toddler can poke and prod at it, and the fishies “swim away” from their fingers. Photo is from For the Love of Learning.

(HearthSong also makes a really cool AquaPod which is a 4′ diameter pod you fill with water that kids can jump on, roll on, etc.)

Discovery Bottle. Fill a water bottle partway with water, add blue food color. Then add in either oil (mineral oil or baby oil are prettier, but any vegetable oil will do – see more pictures at Imagination tree) or blue glitter glue (like littlebins does). Then add seashells and/or plastic fish. Put on the lid and seal with tape or glue. Child shakes and observes.

   

Beach Dough. Make play-dough with sand. Let your child play with it with their usual Play-dough Tools and add shells to mix in.

Crafts

Ocean Foil Painting. Cover cardboard with aluminum foil. Squirt on a little green paint and more blue paint (glitter paint is especially fun). Give child q-tips or paint brush to smear the paint around. Let the painting dry overnight, then add ocean life stickers. Find a full tutorial and more pictures at newswithnaylors.

Bubble wrap prints. Place bubble wrap on a tray. Dribble some paint on it. Let your child use their fingers or a paint brush to spread the paint around. Then press paper onto it to print the paper, then cut the paper into fish or starfish shapes. (photo Crafty Toddlers)

Celery print fish. Give your child a fish shape cut from paper, paint, and a celery stalk. Show them how to dip the celery in paint, and press it to the paper to make fish scales. This image is from Crafty Morning. Your child’s art won’t be this pretty. You could also do this on a paper plate to make a fish like a Little Pinch of Perfect‘s project.

 

Ocean Suncatcher. Peel the backing off of contact paper, and place it sticky side up. Give your child blue tissue paper squares and black ocean life shapes to stick on. When they’re done, seal it with another piece of contact paper and tape in the window. Images from Mrs. Plemon’s kindergarten and Buggy and Buddy.

 

Coffee Filter Craft. Give your child ocean colored liquid watercolors or diluted food coloring and a q-tip. They dip the q-tip in the color, then touch it to the coffee filter to decorate it. Idea from a little Pinch of Perfection.

Paper Bag Jellyfish. Child paints the paper bag, then you cut the tentacles and add a face.

Aquarium – photo at top of page. Spread glue across the bottom of a paper bowl. Sprinkle in aquarium gravel, sequins or gems, or glass stones. Add a sparkly paper fish. (This craft is better suited to preschoolers than young toddlers.)

Outdoor / Pretend Activities

Set up a “beach”. Put out a plastic tub of water – if you have one big enough for your child to walk in or sit it, that’s great. It not even a few bowls full of water to play in with a few scoops to pour back and forth is fun. If you have access to sand, put out a small container of sand for them to play in. (Tip – put the tub on top of a plastic tarp or large trash bag so that when they’re done playing, you can pour all the sand they spilled back into the tub.) Put up a beach umbrella. Bring out towels, and beach reading, and drinks with paper umbrellas. Play some surf music.

Fishing. If your child is no longer mouthing small objects: print or draw pictures of fish, cut them out, add paper clips to each, and throw them in a “pond” (any big container). Give your child a magnet to “go fishing” with.

Songs to Sing

Row Row Row Your Boat

My Bonnie (hold child in lap, lift child up each time you say Bonnie; tune)
My Bonnie lies over the ocean My Bonnie lies over the sea
My Bonnie lies over the ocean Oh bring back my Bonnie to me
Bring back, bring back (rock back and forth) Oh bring back my Bonnie to me, to me
Bring back, bring back (rock back and forth) Oh bring back my Bonnie to me

Little fish (here’s a video of the tune – my words are slightly different)
Little fish, little fish, Swimming in the water,
little fish, little fish, Gulp, gulp, gulp.
Oh no! It’s being eaten by a
Bigger fish, bigger fish, Swimming in the water….
Octopus…wiggling…  great white shark… lurking…
Big blue whale…. Spouting… (for this verse end with “Splash, splash splash” instead of gulp)

Baby Shark (really fun to sing! here’s a video,)
Baby shark, Doot-doo, doot-doo-doo-doo Baby shark, Doot-doo, doot-doo-doo-doo
Baby shark, Doot-doo, doot-doo-doo-doo Baby Shark!
Mommy Shark… Daddy shark… Grandma shark… Going swimming… See a shark… Swimming fast… Safe at last… Bye-bye shark…

All the Fish (tune)
All the fish are swimming in the water, Swimming in the water, Swimming in the water
All the fish are swimming in the water (swimming motions with arms)
Bubble, bubble, bubble, bubble…SPLASH! (spread hands wider & wider, big clap for the SPLASH)
All the ducks are paddling in the water, paddling in the water, paddling in the water
All the ducks are paddling in the water (doggy paddle motion with hands)
Bubble, bubble, bubble, bubble…SPLASH!
All the frogs are jumping in the water…. (jump with both feet)
All the kids are splashing in the water… (splash hands in the air)
Bubble, bubble, bubble, bubble…SPLASH!

Fish in the Ocean (tune: Wheels on the Bus)
The fish in the ocean go swim, swim swim. Swim, swim, swim.  Swim, swim, swim!
The fish in the ocean go swim, swim, swim.  All day long!
The octopus in the ocean goes wiggle…. Sharks chomp…. Crabs pinch… sea horse rocks…

Rhyme to Say

One, two, three, four, five. Once I caught a fish alive.
Six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Then I let him go again.
Why did you let him go? Because he bit my finger so!
Which little finger did he bite? This little finger on the right.

Books to Read

Over in the Ocean: In a Coral Reef by Berkes and Canyon. A counting book-that-sings based on the “Over in the Meadow” tune, featuring gorgeous illustrations.

Fish, Swish! Splash, Dash!: Counting Round and Round by  MacDonald. A terribly clever design. As you read forward in the book, it counts up from one to ten. Then when you reach the end, you flip it over and count down from ten to one.

Ten Little Fish by Wood and Wood. Age 2 – 5. A counting book with cute illustrations, simple text. Counts from ten down to one, then “along comes another fish… soon one is a father, the other is a mother…”

Spot Goes to the Beach by Hill. Duck & Goose Go to the Beach by Hills. Ladybug Girl at the Beach by Soman and Davis. Honestly, just go to your library catalog… do a keyword search for “beach”, then narrow the search down to children’s books, and you’ll discover books from Curious George at the Beach to Paddington to Pete the Cat to Scaredy Squirrel… pretty much every series with more than a few books goes to the beach at some point.

Here is a free printable handout handout you can share with some beach themed activities.

For science themed activities for older kids related to the ocean, the beach, sink and float, check out my other blog, https://inventorsoftomorrow.com/. Or check out my Fun with Toddlers series for other themes, including: Pets, Zoo, Transportation, and the seasons.