One of my favorite units of the year is our Ocean Unit! We cover everything from the kelp forest to the deep, dark abyss.
We begin our unit by introducing the zones and making Ocean in a bottle. It's so much fun and my students love being involved in the process. All you need is a water bottle, vegetable oil, and blue food coloring. I had each group of students make a bottle for their table. I got this idea from A Day in First Grade.
I enjoy having students collect all of their materials, so we added a Science tab to our Interactive Notebooks. We added articles (which I printed two to a page in order to make them fit). We've drawn diagrams, written lists (yes, my students know what "bullets" are) and expository pieces about the zones and animals we've learned about. Our focus has been to identify the adaptations of the animals and how they help the animals to survive in their environments. For instance, the kelp crab has long legs which help it to attack predators.
I created a pack of writing papers to accompany this unit. And it's FREE in my TpT shop {Click HERE}. We chose an animal from each area and shared information about its adaptation(s). The paper was folded in order to fit it into our notebooks.
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| This student has come a long way. So proud of her progress! |
I love integrating art as well! We used a copy of a fish, blue and green construction. The students tore the pieces to make them look like kelp. I extended the activity by having students write a sentence about our discussion from the previous day.
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