Marine Science Sea Lab

Our classroom was transformed into a mini "Marine Science Sea Lab" for the last few weeks of school!  

The kids had so much fun sorting and observing shells at the "Shell Observation Station".  They used a shell picture cheat sheet to look up names of shells, and many of them created shell observation/sketch booklets!  They are such little scientists!  

My sweet little friend Collin brought in his adorable, big-eyed Manta Ray one day, and everyone loved it so much that he became our mascot for our ocean unit!  We named him "Manny the Manta Ray", and even found out cool new facts about Manta Rays.  Everyone was so excited about Manny's arrival, that they brought in many of their own ocean animals, too!  We needed a place for all these guys to swim, so we created an "aquarium"--and, as you can see, it was overflowing with ocean creatures!

Our Ocean Museum showcased ocean projects, puzzles, kid-created posters, shell collections brought in from home, and even a photo of a classmate petting a real dolphin!  They loved visiting the museum in between station activities!

We zoomed off with Mrs. Frizzle and read The Magic School Bus On the Ocean Floor.  We learned that the ocean floor is NOT flat!  We also did an interactive writing activity to remember that some of the deepest valleys and tallest mountains on earth are found in the ocean!  

We read A House for Hermit Crab and made story retelling timelines using yarn and adorable story pieces made by MelonHeadz Illustrating.  We also used graphic organizers from Kim Adsit's Ocean Animals packet to help us how to retell the story in writing! 

  

We learned how to tell the difference between fish and invertebrates:

And, we also learned how fish breathe underwater with Mr. Goldfish guy right here:

Three more days of first grade...