Beach Day

Way back in January we had a Beach Day with the children. We thought it would be fun to celebrate some warmth during the cold winter months. (This winter wasn't actually too cold. I didn't mind either.) Here is what we did on that day.

The children all were to come to school in summer clothing. They could wear shorts, bathing suits, flip flops, sunglasses, hats, etc. They looked so cute all dressed like that in the middle of January. They were also allowed to bring in beach accessories: buckets and shovels, beach towels, toys, beach balls, etc.

First we spread out the towels and had opening relaxed laying on the towels.

For our letter that day we were lucky enough to be on letter S, so we made the sea star or starfish that day.

I let all the children play with the beach balls during free time; throwing, catching, and hitting them in the air. That was a blast for them. Of course, we also had out the sand table. Plus, one child had brought in some squirt toys so we filled a bucket of water and played with them. Lots of fun!

For craft that day I thought we could make a seascape. I created three different colors of blue, then divided a piece of paper into three sections. The children painted each section a different color blue. After it was painted, I had them sprinkle sand on the boldest blue color.

Now, I had to let them dry, so we actually finished the picture the next class. I had lots of foam shapes--sea shapes and land shapes. The idea was to have the children glue the sea shapes in the "water" and the land shapes on the "sand." Some of them just seemed to have fun putting on different shapes so I just let them go.

This Beach Day was a first for me and I think it went well.