Welcome to the classroom! We love to play, learn, create and sing together in the classroom, and we’d like to encourage our classroom friends to keep learning and playing at home once Caitie’s Classroom is over. We’ve put together activities and resources so the playing, learning, creating and singing doesn’t have to stop once Caitie says goodbye. Try these out at home or in your own classroom, and have fun!
In this episode we are going on an underwater adventure! Dive underwater with Caitie and explore amazing underwater animals through crafts, games, songs, activities and a field trip to the aquarium. There are lots of ways to make your own underwater adventure at home, too! Here are our tips and ideas on how to recreate all the fun from the classroom at home for more learning and more fun!
Underwater Diorama
You can make an underwater diorama, just like Caitie did in the classroom. Find our instructions on how to make an Underwater Diorama Craft here. You can also use old CDs to make a really fun looking fish for your diorama, an idea we got from this great craft: Make Your Own Fish Aquarium Using CDs!
Dioramas are a great hands on way to explore different habitats where animals live. Once you have explored underwater, try making dioramas of other environments! Like this Arctic Habitat Diorama.
Underwater Adventure
Caitie takes her friends on a pretend underwater adventure where we find an octopus, pufferfish and starfish! You can create a similar underwater adventure at home, here are a few ideas how:
- Use our A Sailor Went To Sea flashcards and hide them around the room. Have your little one pretend to swim as they search for the flashcards. Once all the flashcards have been found, go through them and see all the different underwater animals you discovered!
- You can also have your little one pretend to dive in and swim around, and you can hold up the flashcards one at a time. Ask your little one what it is, and any other questions you can think of about it. What color is it? How many legs does it have? Etc.
- You can also use our underwater Count And Write worksheets from 10 Little Fishies and A Sailor Went To Sea to go on an underwater adventure on paper!
- Try cutting out the counting squares from this Count And Write worksheet from 10 Little Fishies and hide each one around the room. Have your little one dive in and pretend to swim around the room to find them all. Then bring them together to count and fill in the worksheets.
- Our What Comes Next worksheets from 10 Little Fishies and A Sailor Went To Sea are great for practicing pattern recognition and vocabulary. Try using them on your underwater adventure to find what you will see next on your underwater adventure!
- Try bringing our ‘What Comes Next’ worksheets to life by making up gestures for each animal. Caitie shares gestures for an octopus, pufferfish and starfish in this episode, try those gestures to get some ideas and make up your own for the other animals. Then have one person call out the series of animals on the worksheet and have your little ones act out the animal gesture. For example, the grown up would say ‘seahorse’, and everyone would act out the gesture for seahorse. Then the grown up would say the next animal in the series, ‘jellyfish’, and everyone would act out the gesture for jellyfish. The grown up continues down the line of animals in the series, in this example of the first line of the Sailor Went To Sea – What Comes Next worksheet, it goes seahorse, jellyfish, seahorse, jellyfish, seahorse… then the little one has to guess what comes next. They can call out the animal and do the gesture!
- Use your imagination! Pretend to swim and ask your little one what underwater animals they see and have them describe them to you.
- Once you have finished your underwater adventure, be sure to draw all the animals you saw with our A Sailor Went To Sea Write & Color Worksheet.
Watercolor Underwater Picture
You can also try making an underwater picture of the animals you discovered the way Caitie did in the classroom – with crayons and blue watercolor paint! Using crayons, draw your scene on a white piece of paper. Then brush blue watercolor paint all over the page to make it look like it is underwater! The watercolor won’t stick to the crayon, giving it a very neat effect.
A Sailor Went To Sea
In this episode, Caitie sings A Sailor Went To Sea – a very fun song that explores underwater animal vocabulary.
- Watch our How To Teach series on A Sailor Went To Sea for ideas on how to build off this song for more learning.
- You can also watch the animated music video and find more resources related to this song, including coloring pages, on our A Sailor Went To Sea page.
Visit An Aquarium
Join Caitie on her field trip to Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada in Toronto, Ontario!
- Watch the full version of the field trip.
- Find out about Caitie and Tobee’s trip to an aquarium and see the photos they took there in the 10 Little Fishies episode of Sing Along With Tobee!
- If you are able, try visiting an aquarium where you live for a unique experience. Be sure to engage with your little ones and ask questions about what you see, hear, and feel.
Underwater Discovery Bin
Take a dive into the underwater discovery bin! You can easily create a super fun underwater discovery bin at home.
- Our discovery bin uses blue water beads, one of our favorite sensory materials. These can be easily found online and in most craft stores.
- We used plastic underwater animal toys in our underwater discovery bin. These are great to explore underwater animals. As your child discovers new animals in the bin, give them a few facts about each one, like Caitie does in the episode. If you can’t find underwater animal toys, try laminating pictures of animals to put in the bin. TIP: if you don’t have a laminator, packing tape makes a great substitute.
- Other great items for your underwater discovery bin are shells, rocks, bath toys, fish tank decorations, beach items, and any plant life.
- You can also just use water for a really fun discovery bin. Try giving the water a few drops of blue food coloring for a fun effect.
- Make a big underwater discovery bin in the bathtub during your next bath time!
Swim & Stop Game
Let’s swim & stop! This game is really fun and very similar to the classic Freeze Dance game. When we see a fish in the window, we swim! When we see a shark, we freeze and don’t move… we don’t want the shark to see us! Play along with Caitie in the classroom, and try it at home!
- Swim and stop to the song Red Light, Green Light.
- Use any song you like – when the song is playing, everybody swims! When the song is paused, call out ‘shark’ and everyone must freeze.
- Try just calling out ‘fish’ and ‘shark’ for a simple version you can play anywhere.
- Use flashcards of a shark and fish, like these 10 Little Fishies flashcards and hold them up for ‘fish’ and ‘shark’.
- Try making our swimming underwater animal craft (details below) and have your homemade fish swim and stop along with you!
Swimming Underwater Animal Craft
This craft is fun to make, and super fun to play with. Try making many different underwater animals and switch them out as you like. Here are all the details on how to make this craft.
We hope you have fun singing, playing, learning, and creating! We love to see photos of our friends having fun in the classroom and of their wonderful creations! You can share them with us through social media or by sending us an email to hello@SuperSimpleOnline.com.
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