Wonderful Water July Day 1

We started the week off playing some Sneaky Animals and a silly name game. Then we hiked to the schoolhouse and did a gratitude circle. After saying something we are thankful for, we started our Ocean Zones flip book. We learned about the top zone (sunlight zone) and some of the sea creatures that live there. Then we colored in our animals and added them to the first layer of our book which we will work on a little each day. We also talked about what causes ocean currents (wind, land formations, salinity, temperature, etc. ) and I did a demonstration with cold blue water and hot red water released into room temperature water to illustrate how hot water rises and cold water falls. We also listed the names of the 5 major oceans (which several of them knew!) Then we went on a hike to collect sticks for making a mini raft. While collecting our sticks we played a game of "Overfishing". We talked about what overfishing is and how it can devastate a species and ecosystem. Then two kids were fishermen with a spray bottle for "catching" fish. They had to spray the other kids legs rather than "tag" them which then sent the "caught" fish to "the market". But some kids are secretly fish and others are boots. The fishermen don't know if they are catching fish or boots. After awhile, I call "Freeze" and we see if there are more fish than boots left in the sea. If there are more fish than boots left then the fishermen win. Then we went back inside to make our mini rafts and paper people to ride on the rafts. The challenge was to keep your paper person dry as they rode down the creek on their raft. After lunch, we took our mini rafts to the creek and raced, played and explored. A few of them had fun on the swinging vine. On our hike to the top of the drive we picked and ate some wild blackberries.