F is for Fish: Homeschool and Preschool Lesson Plans

This week we supplemented our learning experience with the theme F is for Fish. While I should have waited for June, which is National Ocean's Month, all the talk about fish for Lent got the water splashing. First we started off our week talking about fish, oceans and water creatures. Books on these topics include: Touchy Feely; Ocean Buddies by Beth Pountney (a board book but my children love the touchy feely books); The Pop Up Commotion in the Ocean by by Giles Andreae and David Wojtowycz and Ocean Life From A to Z Book and DVD by Cynthia Stierle and Annie Crawley. Don't forget One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish- by Dr. Seuss, I almost did!

We included DVD's this week, as we found a Calliou episode where Calliou goes to the library and the librarian reads a story about fish and the ocean. Strawberry Shortcakes Seaberry Beach Party rounded out our audio visual lesson plans.

Practice Writing the Letter F, from a printable practice page featuring the letter F, writing lines with both the upper and lower case F and a picture of fish inside the upper case letter F.

Field Trip for F is for Fish Lesson Plans and Activities

A trip to the pet store is much less expensive than a trip to the Aquarium, and with little ones it is a lot easier too. We got to visit with the lady at the pet shop and ask her questions about the fish on display there as well as visit with the turtles, tortoises, crabs and other water dwelling creatures on display. Of course, we bought treats for the dogs, we couldn't just leave without buying something!

Crafts and Activities for F is for Fish week:

Create your own ocean scene. Recently thanks to a donation to Easter Seals we received in the mail mailing stickers with different sea creatures on them. Simply cut off our address and they are perfect for creating your own ocean scene. Start with dark blue construction paper, then glue down light blue pieces of tissue paper to make your ocean scene. Next spread glue or "glop" it whatever the children want and give them either a cut out of sandpaper for an island, or in our case we used glitter. Children then place stickers wherever they want, hopefully with a little direction as to which fish and animals can live on land and which ones in the ocean and of course those that can do both.

This project teaches about the concepts of ocean, land, under and over, water creatures, fish, and fine motor skills.

Puffed fish are an involved project. However, once you get going on the craft, it's great fun and you easily get into the swim of things. Start with a brown or white lunch paper bag. Paint it. Then crumble up newspaper and stick it inside to "blow up" the fish. Leave about 2 inches at the end of the bag then use a rubber band or twist tie to seal. Add wiggly eyes to the front, fins to the side and stripes or dots if your children would like. We used dilly dot markers to create dots on the fins and fish (just like a real puffer fish). If you like, glue down onto blue paper with white "ocean" waves like the project features at Crayola.com.

This project teaches creativity, imagination, specific fish habitat and attributes as well as color reinforcement and fine motor skills.

Gross Motor/Creative Movement: We moved around the house flapping our fins like fish. The girls particularly like the fish face you can make by sucking your cheeks in and pursing your lips. We jumped like the fish, in and out of the "water." We had a little bit of cold weather, so instead of swimming we became mermaids in the bathtub and threw in toys ocean creatures like fish, starfish and plastic crabs - all available at the dollar store.

For just a few dollars this week the girls got to learn some new skills, reinforce others and even take a field trip. And mom even got to have some fun too. I think the mermaid bath was my favorite.