Imagination Station - Under the Sea

Imagination Station : Under the Sea
(aimed at children ages 3-6)

This program consisted of a short storytime followed by exploration of ocean themed stations. 

Storytime

1. Book: Way Down Deep in the Blue Blue Sea by Jan Peck, illustrated by Valeria Petrone

This is a great read-a-loud featuring tons of ocean animals. A great introduction to the program! 

2. Flannel Board Story: Five Little Fish Teasing Mr. Shark

(Sung to the tune of 5 Little Monkeys Swinging in the Tree)

Five little fish, swimming in the sea,
Teasing Mr Shark
“You Can’t Catch Me!”
You Can’t Catch Me!”
When along swam Mr. Shark, as quiet as can be…
AND (clap hands) caught that fishy right out of the sea.
(Repeat with four fish, three fish, two fish, and one fish…)
So alone swam Mr. Shark as quiet as can be
And he looked and he looked…
“no more fishies for me.”

The kids LOVED clapping along with me. I also had the kids say with me, "You Can't Catch Me." They enjoyed it a lot :) 

3. Book: Topsy Turvy Ocean

I love these Topsy Turvy books! This one is full of super wacky ocean animals doing ridiculous things. The kids laughed at all the funny scenes in the book. It's a little long but great for older preschoolers :) 

4. Song: Carole Peterson - The Little Fish

This is such a fun song!! Kids always love pretending they are a fish that is swimming, sleeping, brushing teeth, and riding a bike. The song is goofy and kids always laugh as Carole Peterson says, "Wait a minute... fish don't ride bicycles! We're fish!"

Stations

1. Ocean Puppets fun with puppet theatre -- I basically set out a basket of our Folkmanis ocean puppets for the kids to play with. We have a portable and very light puppet theatre that we got on Amazon that I absolutely love. It's cheap but I love it because it's soooo easy to pull in and out of our closet. Of course, you can never go wrong with folkmanis puppets. I don't usually let kids play with the fancy folkmanis puppets since they're so expensive but for this program, I decided to let them. :) 

2. Sensory bin – ocean animals, water beads, and coral! I can't remember the brand I used but I know I've used Magic Beadz with success in the past. Basically I just filled a huge bin with water to let the beads soak and expand for about 15 hours. Then I added plastic coral, vinyl fish, and fine motor tools.

3. Sensory bottles - I collected some of those fancy clear water bottles and added water, hair gel, oil, and soap to them. I sort of just experimented with what I added and there is no real perfect equation as to the amount of random liquids you add. I dumped a little food coloring, glitter, sand, pebbles, shells, and tiny ocean animals in and voila - cool sensory bottles that kids love staring at! 

4. Fishbowl craft and ocean visor craft - I gave children the chance to decorate a white die cut fish bowl with die cut fish. I also had cardstock visors with lots of ocean themed shapes for kids to glue to their visors. 

5. Ocean puzzles - We had an ocean scene floor puzzle out for kids to play with if they wanted!

6. Explore seashells with magnifying glasses - Children had the chance to look at my personal seashell collection with magnifying glasses! 

7. Shell x-rays exploration - Not sure where we got these from but we put these on a table for kids to explore. Wish I had a portable light table for these but we don't. Definitely something to consider purchasing for the future. 

8. Sea animal word hunt - I put pictures of ocean animals hidden around the room and then had children "hunt" for the animals around the room. :) 

9. Submarine - I made a cardboard submarine with the help of one of our summer college student employees. We bought the fish net on Amazon and threw it over the top. I added pictures of submarine controls on the inside. We also have this piece of wood that has typical control things added to it (mini tv, buttons panel, phone, keyboard, etc). Kids absolutely LOVE IT!!! I also had some telescopes I made out of cardboard paper tubes and dixie cups that I decorated with foam ocean shape stickers. I also put a ocean tablecloth taped to the floor to make it appear more ocean-like. I also clipped blue ocean-esque fabric to these metal rolling wall things we have at the library. 

10. Water vehicles - I set these around the room for kids to play with.  They're the "Green Toys" brand. Highly recommend these very durable and awesome toys! 

11. Blow up ocean animals from Oriental Trading - These are AWESOME!!!

So that's my program. :)