Beach themes are ideal for classrooms in the spring.
Bring the ocean breeze into your classroom with interactive beach activities and displays designed to get students involved with some educational fun in the sun. Go beyond the basics of beach photos and sandboxes with interactive themes that educate and entertain. From a beach picnic to a hunt for seashells, turn your classroom into a day at the beach your students will always remember.
Interactive Beach Stations
Invite a lifeguard to speak to students about beach activities and water safety.
Divide your classroom into "beach stations" representing various activities and aspects of a day at the beach. For example, create a sundries stand from a large appliance box and paint it blue and white. Have students "sell" beach supplies, such as towels and sunscreen. Explain the importance of sunscreen and sun-protection factors. Encourage students to explore concepts of environmental protection with a box of sand featuring a yellow caution tape barrier indicating the protection of sea turtle eggs. Add sea oats in the background to exemplify a lesson on preventing beach erosion. Provide a separate box of sand with hidden seashells for students to find. Use the opportunity to explain various life forms, such as mollusks and mussels, inhabiting seashells.
Beach Games
Provide a damp sandbox with small cups and shaped forms for creating sandcastles.
Decorate your classroom walls with blue cellophane to inspire thoughts of the ocean. Purchase a large beige carpet remnant to resemble sand where students can play beach games, such as paddleball or volleyball, with soft foam balls. Clear a space in the classroom and limit play to two students at a time. The Teaching Heart website suggests children create their own beach towels from large sheets of paper they can decorate with crayons and markers. Let the children sit or lie on their beach towels and wear sunglasses during story time. Run a fan on slow speed to mimic an ocean breeze and explain how weather conditions affect the ocean. At lunchtime, host an indoor beach picnic using sand pails as lunch boxes.
Nighttime Beach Environment
Display photos of various nocturnal crustaceans.
Create a starry nighttime beach sky with black or navy blue sheets of craft paper. Use adhesive glow-in-the-dark stars to decorate the sky. Turn out the lights and allow students to lie on their backs to watch the stars during quiet time. Explain the gravitational forces between the moon and earth that cause high and low tides. Have students make their own crabs from container lids and attach pipe cleaners for claws. Hang the crabs on a fishing net and use the project to segue into a classroom discussion about other crustaceans, such as horseshoe crabs and blue crabs, that forage on the beach at night.
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