Motion of the Ocean

At my house, the study of the ocean could last on and on for weeks! We spend so much of our time at the beach, which leads to a natural curiosity about the sea-life, tides, shoreline, sand fleas and more. There is just SO much to learn about the sea creatures and the seashore!

Ocean Books

As I have mentioned, we learn in unit studies – if you haven’t read my post on what a unit study is you can read it here! We almost always start our units out with lots of books! Seeing as our library is currently closed, we have taken to looking at authors reading on youtube or on the open source library areas. We have had success with archive.org. Some of the books I recommend for this unit:

• “Wish for a Fish” – Bonnie Worth – this book is part of the Cat and the Hat series, its a cute rhyming story about all the different creatures and layers of the ocean. This story was entertaining and informative for my K student and my 2nd grader. If you don’t have the book you can have it read to you here
• “Dory Story” – Jerry Pallotta – No this is NOT related to finding Nemo or Dory! In this story, a little boy has a dream about the food chain in the ocean. It shows who eats who. This book you can have read to you by the Author, Jerry Pallotta, right here! How neat is that!!
• “Over in the Ocean: Coral Reef“ – Marianne Berkes – This is a county and rhyming book on the sea creatures! See it here. Great for younger ones and for older ones to read to their younger siblings.
• “A house for a Hermit Crab” – Eric Carle- We love Eric Carle! This story is about a hermit crab you can have it read to you here.

For an easy reader for kids, don’t forget to check out the “Clark the Shark” series by Bruce Hale!

Experiments

After reading “Wish for a Fish” we really wanted to dig into learning about the ocean layers. We watched a short video here about the technical names of the ocean zones and which animals live there! Then we did an experiment.

We made this super easy ocean layers jar. You probably have most of the ingredients right in your home. Let me tell you how to do it – and bonus this is also a great lesson in density for older learners. And just fun for the younger ones!

Oceans Layers

Supplies:

• Empty clear jar or bottle with a lid
• corn syrup or molasses
• blue food coloring
• vegetable oil
• blue dish soap
• water
• rubbing alcohol
• funnel or a baster
• 2 small bowls
• paper and tape to label the layers (optional)

Instructions:

1. Mix the corn syrup (1/2 cup) with the blue food coloring in a bowl. You want this layer to be very dark. Alternatively you could use molasses.
2. Using a funnel or a baster, carefully and slowly add to the bottom of the jar, being careful not to touch the sides.
3. Next, slowly and carefully add 1/2 cup blue dish soap to the jar.
4. Mix the water (1/2 cup) with a few drops of blue food coloring. You want this to be lighter than the dish soap.VERY SLOWLY add this layer so that it does not mix with the dish soap.
5. Slowly add the vegetable oil- yes it is yellow but it serves the purpose to creating a see through layer.
6. Last but not least, add the rubbing alcohol to the top.

Label the 5 layers of the ocean! Trench is the bottom, then Abyss, The Midnight Zone, Twilight Zone, Sunny Zone!

Ocean in Jar

If you are looking for a simpler experiment for the younger ones, you can try an Ocean Jar!

Supplies:

• Empty clear jar or bottle with a lid
• water
• blue food coloring
• vegetable oil
• glitter or sequins (optional)

Instructions:

1. Add water about 2/3 of the way up the bottle or jar
2. Mix in with blue food coloring to make it look like the ocean!
3. Add 1-2 inches of oil to the top
4. You can then add glitter, sequins, anything that floats! We used googly eyes.
5. Turn your bottle on it side and make some waves, watch how the glitter (or whatever you added) floats around in the water. And how the water does not mix with the oil!

This is a great opportunity to explain to your kids about density: because the oil is less dense than the water, it will NOT mix together! The water has a higher density than oil.

Fish & Sharks

No ocean unit is complete without studying sharks and fish! We started out by watching some old episodes of Shark Week on Hulu (because who doesn’t love shark week!). Then, we did some reading about sharks and how they are NOT mammals, but fish. We love “Hark it’s a Shark” by Bonnie Worth (another Dr. Suess book). Have it read to you here.

Next, we learned about how fish have a swim bladder that helps make them buoyant, and that sharks don’t! Try watching this short video. Adding on to the video, we did a short experiment about how fish float in the ocean called sink or float! Just pretend your egg is a fish!

Ocean Water Sink or Float

Supplies:

• medium sized bowl
• water
• an egg (raw)
• salt!
• other objects that you may like to test to see if they float

Instructions:

1. Fill a bowl with tap water.
2. Heat up the water a bit to make it easier to mix in the salt.
3. test the egg in the warm water (it will sink)
4. Add about 1/2 cup to a cup of salt. The water should look a little cloudy.
5. Test the egg again. (this time it should float!)
6. If the egg does not float, add more salt, or warm up the water a little more to mix it up!
7. You can test other objects around your house if you want to see what else will float!

Additional Ocean Resources

We finished up our unit with a few other cool projects: an egg carton craft, an episode of Magic School Bus (Magic School Bus Takes a Dive) with an activity about seashells, and a food chain story and diagram! If you’d like additional resources, you can download my 2nd grade packet, on teachers pay teachers here or the full ocean unit for K-3 here.

Or feel free to get this Kindergarten and 1st grade writing prompt worksheet for free! (Click the image)

Thank you for enjoying our ocean unit! Look forward to next a unit on the water cycle!