Ocean Alphabet

As we continued with our Ocean theme this week I knew I wanted to tie in some literacy skills practice. With the warm, almost perfect, summer weather, it was also a great time to be outside and the kids were definitely interested with playing with water. That inspired the creation of our "Ocean Alphabet" activity.

Big Brother has done alphabet fishing before in our alphabet sensory bin. But this was the first time we created something outside in our actual pool. It was a huge hit with both Big Brother and Little Miss H!

To create the activity I cut 26 different shaped fish and other ocean animals out of craft foam. I cut these free hand, but a template would also work. I used a large, black sharpie to write capital letters onto each animal. I also cut a slit down the length of a pool noodle. Under the slit I wrote all the lowercase letters in alphabetical order. (Big Brother has mastered identifying all his capital letters already, so I was looking to add a little more challenge to the activity.) 

I filled our small "baby" pool with clean water and added the fish. 

We had both a butterfly net from the dollar store and small net from Daddy's tackle box to use in the "fishing." The kids were eager to get to work. 

They "fished" a creature out of the water and said the letter out loud. They then matched the capital letter to the lowercase letter on the pool noodle. When they found the right letter they placed the ocean animal in the slit of the pool noodle. 

One strategy we practiced  when the kids couldn't quickly find the letter match was going back to the beginning of the  alphabet and saying each letter aloud until they got to the one they wanted. 

They worked together as a team to collect all the animals from the pool and place them onto the right place on the pool noodle. 

When they finished they took all the animals out of the noodle and started again!