Ocean Lesson Plans

• Into The Ocean - Show students some of David Doubilet's photographs. Explain that he is a famous photographer who specializes in taking pictures in the ocean.
• Introduction to Oceans - The student will begin to be familiar with the concept of size of oceans in world comparison.
• Let's Make Waves- The most effective way to help children replace a misconception is to give them an experience that directly challenges it. In this simple set of activities children use wind to create waves and use marbles to model energy moving through water.
• My Trip to the Ocean - The goal of this lesson is to have the students learn about the ocean while completing many different activities that will strengthen their understanding of the ocean.
• Ocean Advocacy Project - Use persuasive writing skills and multimedia technology to change a specific behavior or an action of the identified target audience, such as littering, which could harm an endangered species.
• Ocean Art- Children create an ocean picture with showing sea creatures in their habitat.
• Ocean Exploration Time Lines- Students use suggested online or library sources to create time lines of various ocean explorations.

1. Ocean Life Mural- Students draw pictures of marine life. Students work together to create a mural.
2. Ocean Mysteries, Legends, and Customs- Students use the Internet to research mysteries, legends, and customs related to the ocean. Students choose one topic and create a short story about it.
3. Ocean Puzzle Fun- Students complete word search, word scramble, and maze puzzles with an ocean theme.
4. Ocean Sensory Center- To feel and experience the ocean in the sand/water table.
5. Others in and Around the Water- A collection of poems.
6. Oceans of the World- Students use the Internet or library sources to compare and contrast information about the Atlantic, Pacific, Indian, and Arctic Oceans. Students also locate the oceans on a world map.
7. Oceans: True or False?- Students take a quiz to test their knowledge of the oceans. (This activity might be used at the start or end of an oceans unit.)
8. Oil Spill! - Students will experience the cleanup of a simulated oil spill. Students will be able to retell important key concepts relating to the story content.
9. Ride the Wave!- Students learn about sonar and how sonar works.
10. Save the Oceans Poster- Students work in pairs to create posters showing things people can do to protect and preserve the oceans.
11. The Endangered Ocean Ecosystem - Write persuasively for on an advocacy issue to preserve the ocean ecosystem.
12. The Ocean Floor- My students found this very interesting and loved to see what that they had copied their ocean floor onto a graph, and of course, paper mache is always messy fun!
13. The Rainbow Fish- Builds on the book "The Rainbow Fish".
14. The Rainbow Fish: Other Activities- Cut many different fish out of paper plates, one for each child. The ridges on the plates make really great fins.
15. Watercolor Rainbow Fish- After reading the book and discussing it, we make rainbow fish with watercolors.