Put several shark teeth (fake or real) in your sand table. Let your children sift through the sand and find the teeth. Cut starfish and fist shapes out of sponges. Let your children play with these in your water table. Fill balloons with water. Draw on fins, mouths, etc. Let your children play with these in the water table. For an added effect add fishnets and let your children try to catch the fish. Cut out several pictures of different ocean creatures. Pull the names of the creatures out of a hat. The person that has that creature stands up. The last child sitting wins! Put several plastic ocean creatures under a sheet. Call out a child's name and say "(Child's Name) dive under the ocean" then have that child go under the sheet and retrieve an ocean creature. When they have their creature have them tell the class what it is (or if they're too young you can tell them). Draw a large shark face on a piece of poster board or the side of a box. Cut a hole out where the shark's mouth would be and add paper teeth (make it at least twice the size of the beanbag). Tape the board to a chair and let each of your children take three tries to feed the shark (by throwing a beanbag into the shark's mouth). Play just like duck, duck, goose! Put your children into groups of four. Have them try to make an octopus with waving tentacles. This is a great activity, they can use their arms or legs as tentacles, while working to stay together as one group. Get a small bucket or trough and fill it partially with water, fill this trough with seaweed or other sea vegetation. Hide small treasures on the bottom of the trough and let your children search for these items. Warning: This is very messy and fun! Play just like the Hokey Pokey
Put your left fin in, take your left fin out
You do the fishy pokey and you turn yourself around that's what its all about
Put your right gill in, take your right gill out (etc.) Ask your kids how long they think the largest creature in the world is. Then get a long rope (about 100 feet) and have them unwind it. They will be amazed at how long a blue whale is. Next ask them how many of their lengths it would take to make a blue whale (You can actually do this if you have the time) Let the children bring in a beach blanket during beach week. They can take naps on them are sit on them during activity time. Cut the styrofoam containers used to hold hotdogs (like you get at a carnival, or baseball game or fast food place with a hot dog to go) and cut the top and bottom apart. This created two "boats". Next I cut out simple fish from all different colors of construction paper and gave one fish of each color to each child along with a boat. We spread the fish on the floor and sang this chant: "Fishy fishy, in the sea, jump in to my boat for me! Fishy, fishy in the sea, what color fish will you be?" Next I called a color and they had to find that fish and put it in their boat. We had a lot of fun with this and reviewed our colors at the same time! Have your children wear their swimsuits one day and have a beach party complete with beach balls, volleyball (over a short net or no net at all), Frisbee's, etc. Give each of your children some play-dough and let them explore making imprints with different ocean items (seashells, starfish, sea horse shapes, etc) Cut a variety of seashell shapes, colors, and sizes from paper. Your children can do various things with these:
*Sort them by color
*Sort them by shape
*Sequence them from smallest to largest
*Match them by shape
*Match them by color
*Match them by size
*Hide them around the room and search for them Get minnows or other small fish from either a pet store or a bait shop. Put them in shallow water in an aquarium, bowl, or in a water play area. Let you children try to catch them. Caution them that if they do catch them to put them back in the water quickly. At the end of the day let the minnows go in the closest body of water. Have your children play limbo by acting like different sea animals. (i.e.: wiggle like a fish, walk like a crab, slide like an eel, etc.) Create a fishing pole using a stick and a piece of yarn with a magnet tied to the end. Write different prizes on paper and tape them to magnets. Have your children try to catch the prizes. Have your children cut out different sea creature shapes. Then have them paint them any way that they want. Finally, hang up a sheet in front of an overhead projector, turn off the lights, and let your children act out scenes with shadow fish. Note: Play sea music while your children act out their scenes. Make a large round octopus head. Then put different numbers of dots, letters, or stickers around the head. Put corresponding dots, letters, or stickers on tentacles. Have your children match the tentacles to the correct spot on the head. Have one child close their eyes and then select a shape from a shape poster. Then all of your children chant:

(Child's Name) over the ocean, (Child's Name) over the sea.
(Child's Name) over the ocean, find a shape for me.
Then the child guesses a shape. And the class responds
"Yes (No) it is (isn't) a _______".

Have the children sit in a circle and pass around a toy fish while the whole class chants

"Who caught a fish in the big blue sea?"
(Student Holding Fish's Name) caught a fish in the big blue sea!
Student Holding Fish's Name says, "Who me?"
The Class says, "Yes, you!" Student says, "Couldn't be!"
Class replies, "Then who?" Then start passing the fish again.

Have one (or several children) be the shark. The rest of your children must try to cross the ocean (a set space that you specify) and not get eaten (tagged) by the shark. If they get caught then they join the shark to try to catch more fish. Keep playing until everyone is sharks.
Everything Preschool >> Themes  >> Ocean >> Games