Beach Themed Activities

Here are a few beach theme activities for our shelves...

Practical Life

Pouring sand
James has perfected his pouring skills, so I'm not sure how much longer I'll be preparing this kind of work. I'll put it out for as long as he has the interest and so he has the option.

Umbrella pushing
Similar to our flag pushing activity. These are those little drink umbrellas you can just about anywhere. James loved them!

Tweezing flowers
We did this a few months ago and James really enjoyed it, so I put it out again.

Sensory

Sorting sea glass
This was the first activity James chose. I think it's because it looks so pretty and natural. Dr. Montessori believed children were naturally drawn to real and organic items.

Beach sensory tub
Click here to read more about it and our sandy playdough.

Sorting beach shapesI found these at the pet store in the fish section. :) I was surprised to observe that James had a hard time differentiating some of the shapes. I wonder if he was distracted by the colors?

Language

We read a few beach themed books and these are the two I'd recommend...

Swimmy, by Leo Lionni. A sweet, yet simple story with some really cool illustrations.

On The Seashore, by Anna Milbourne. I generally like all of the books by this author. This one tells the story of a cute little hermit crab who travels a tide pool looking for a new home.

We are blessed to live so close to tons of amazing beaches, so of course we spend a lot of our time there.How is this a language activity? Well, after printing out the photo I asked James a bunch of questions about it. It was such a great way to get him to think about what he was seeing, to use his vocabulary and to learn new words, too. Here's a sample of the questions I asked:

:: What is Daddy doing with his hands?
:: What kinds of activities can you do at the beach?
:: Why is James wearing a hat?
:: Can you find anyone else in this picture?

Math

Sequencing
I found the clip art on abcteach.com. Our color printer was down at the time, so I colored the images in myself. (I LOVE coloring!) :) I cut out the images, laminated them and then took photos of them in various combinations. James can use the photo strips to copy the sequences.

Counting coconutsIt's about time I got around to creating an activity in honor of my lil blog! I cut these shapes out of felt. The idea here is that James will shake a (homemade) die and add that number of coconuts to the tree. He'll then shake the other die and add that number to the tree too and then count the sum total. It's a fun introduction to addition. I used small, wooden blocks and a black marker to create the dice. Note to self: buy a wood burning tool.

Quantifying with shellsI made some number cards and gathered 55 shells to use as counters.

Measuring palm fronds
After collecting a few fronds from our yard, I cut them down to various sizes. We will use a nifty little tape measure from my sewing stash to measure each piece. I think James is really going to like this activity!

Art
I realized we haven't done much in the way of "organized" art lately. We made these shell collages last month and James has been spending TONS of time coloring and drawing me beautiful pictures. :)

That's it! These will last us the next few weeks easily. This week my niece is coming to stay with us for a couple of weeks and I know James will be happily preoccupied with her. :)

On a personal note, I'm feeling anxious about the upcoming school year. I don't know why exactly. Maybe it's because I haven't made any real plans as to how our school schedule will run. I've made up my mind that we're moving into true homeschooling mode, which means we'll be having schooltime everyday, just as James would if he were attending a school outside of home. I'm not at all worried about our curriculum since I have 100% faith in Montessori. I guess I just need to find some time to sit down and think about it all. :)

I'm linking up to two wonderful learning spots: Montessori Monday and The Preschool Corner.

~Thank you for your comments!~