Mother Goose Time- Small Sea Creatures Preschool Lesson Plans

Here's some free Mother Goose Time lesson plan ideas that preschool through elementary-age children will love.

Each day of the week, we learned about each of the following:

• plankton and jellyfish
• sea star
• seahorse
• sea sponge
• x-ray fish

There was a lot to do for each day, which we can't cover all here, but I'll share our favorites with you.

Jellyfish Hat Craft and Dramatic Play

My daughters loved acting out being a jellyfish. They had a lot of fun with the dramatic play. Their dad was stung by a jellyfish once, so the topic was interesting to them.

Here's a picture of the lesson plan from the book. Mother Goose Time provided all of the above supplies, except for the tape. It's such a great time saver to have all of the supplies in the bag each day! Every once in a while, I just need to use some of our own glue, tape or paint. Most other supplies are included.

Supplies:

• photograph of a jellyfish
• shower cap
• tape
• curling ribbon (what you use to wrap presents)

The children tape the curling ribbon onto the shower cap, as they look at a photograph of a jellyfish.

Then, the children act out being a jellyfish.

You can also hang the jellyfish craft onto the wall, and the children could swim though the sea looking up at the jellyfish.

"Look, mom. I am swimming under the jellyfish!"

 

 

Sea Star Snack and Bumpy Sea Star Craft

This is a photo of our sea star snack. Of course, you could use sunbutter, if needed. We didn't have
rice crispies, so the girls decorated their sea stars with nuts and cranberries.

I didn't have a star cookie cutter, so it took me a couple of times to get the stars right. I just cut two pieces of bread at once and then separated the pieces for each daughter.




This Sea Star Craft was really fun for the girls. It seems so simple, but they loved putting on the bumps and then feeling the sea star. You can also practice counting the legs. We usually count in English and then Spanish. Practicing anything in Spanish pretty much makes it differentiated for my older daughter. That way the older child and younger child are both able to be challenged. I think counting in Spanish is beginning to be too easy for our eight-year-old daughter, so I think I may have her start counting in Italian, too. She can count to 100 in Spanish.

 

 

 

Daddy Seahorse Game

This Mother Goose Time Daddy Seahorse Game is so adorable! My daughters could not wait to show daddy their seahorse game and to play it with him when he got home.



For our younger daughter, we practiced counting the baby seahorses in English, and she also tried Spanish along with her older sister. We said numbers in Spanish for our older daughter, because English was too easy for her. That way it made the game fun for our older daughter, too. Otherwise, it would have been too easy for our older daughter.

Daddy seahorses take care of seahorse babies in their pouch. The girls turned over a number and put in the correct number of seahorses in the daddy seahorse's pouch.

 

Sponge Stencils

The girls hung their sponge stencils above their desks next to their jellyfish hats. This activity seemed to really relax them. I noticed that some of the ocean photographs in this month's box seemed to have a relaxing effect. Research has shown that fish tanks and ocean scenes tend to relax children. That's also why I chose to put their finished artwork on the wall in front of their desks. I love the colorful photographs Mother Goose Time includes for each day's lessons.

Supplies:

• Background picture paper (picture of a
  
  ocean scene)
• Sea sponge stencils
• Sponge
• Paint
• Glue or tape

 

 

 

 

X-Ray Fish Handprint Craft

Handprint crafts are so much fun. It would be fun to put together a calendar with all of the handprint crafts we do for the year, and make a calendar for the following year.

Here are the instructions:

Look at their little handprints!

Mother Goose Time packed tons to do into this week! We had so much fun, and we are so excited about our adventures next week!

Next week will be our final week studying Ocean Commotion, and we will be discovering more about ocean exploration.