Week 4 Under the Sea

Week 4 of Science After School focused on the theme of the ocean. As soon as children started to arrive, there were masks waiting for them on their desks to decorate as Kelli and I waited anxiously for all to arrive. I began by reading a passage from the story of "Where The Wild Things Are" that dealt with Max sailing across the ocean.  Blocks were passed around the room to have the children guess as to which ones would sink and which ones would float. We proceeded with a sink or swim activity. Then I taught the children vocabulary using a matching game and they applied what they knew in our application activity. I gave the children a problem that they had to solve. Max was trying to go back home to his family but he wanted to bring back all of his "Wild Thing" friends with him to show his family. So the students had to build a boat out of materials out of their kits to hold the most "Wild Things" or pennies. The group that held the most won. The kids all really enjoyed themselves.

I drew and painted a huge mural for the back of the room that consisted of various animals under the sea. I also created different pictures to decorate the outside of the classroom. Kelli decorated the front of the room with seashells and fishing net. The place looked like you were really under the ocean.


This experience was definitely a lot of fun, and the kids were all great each and every week. 

If you would like to see a copy of the lesson plan we used, my partner Kelli posted it below.