Early Years Toy Shelfie Rotation
This blog post will give you ocean themed play ideas and resources from a toy rotation we had when my daughter Floss was 20 months old. As you will see lots of the ideas could be for younger or older children. Below is the original post with updates that we’ve added over the years.
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Starting with a Wow
Last week we took Floss to a sea life centre; to say she was mesmerised would have been an understatement! There was a large rescue turtle in one of the tanks and I don’t think I’ve ever heard her learn a new word so quickly – T U R T L E!
Turtles have been an obsession ever since, yet the whole under sea experience really captivated her and I thought this week we’d see whether she’d enjoy being immersed a little more in the deep blue sea. So here is our shelf – no one is more surprised than me that after a morning of intense use that fabric is still in place!
Carry on reading to find out what we’ve got and why, plus find out about what other plans we have for the week of ocean exploration.
Matching and Naming New Vocabulary
Matching and naming is an activity that has really captured Floss’s interest lately. After her interest in the turtle at the sea life centre, I wondered if she’d enjoy matching other objects and not just colours. Pinterest helped out with ocean animal pictures from Stephanie at Imagineourlife.com.
I selected five that I thought she might like, weren’t too similar and I actually had the animals for. As you can see the animals are a bit random and not from actual sets (they’re randomly collected from my teaching days). However, if you’re looking for little animals then Toob Coral Reef , Toob Safari Ocean or Terra Sea Animals gets you a good selection or if you’re looking for larger then Schleich do a brilliant range of robust, detailed, ocean animals.
These little cards I backed and laminated to make them more sturdy and popped the corresponding animals next to them. This was the first thing Floss went to explore. She moved them onto her little table and began to look at the animals and cards. When she spotted the turtle she was so excited and put the fabric turtle on top of the card. She spent so much time with them matching up and as she did I gave her the name of the animal. I think whale could be the new favourite word and she’s been carrying the Orca round all morning. This is such a great way to introduce new vocabulary to little ones.
Other ocean animals I put in a wooden bowl for her to explore. I know I need to make some more cards to match these as she’s very interested in knowing the names. I’m realising I need to brush up on my shark naming knowledge tonight as just saying ‘shark’ is leading to disbelieving looks!
Ocean Book Recommendations for Kids
We love books! Here’s a selection of some of our favourite ocean books. We’ve got one of my previous class’s favourites Commotion in the Ocean – a lovely, bounce along rhyming book, Tiddler the little fish with the big imagination (this book is around level Turquoise on the book band levels) and The Emperor’s Egg a Dad looking after his precious egg through the harsh winter.
New Ocean Books
A recent addition for 2024 is Turtle Rescue. You can find a review of this title and Little Turtle and the Sea on the blog here. You can also see the play tray set up that I did for Floss too. I wish the Inspire My Play Tray had been on the market when Floss was younger – it’s a brilliant resource.
Simple Learning
We couldn’t be without balls – I can’t tell you how much fun she’s had bouncing these and testing them against ones that don’t bounce. Toddler science in action!
Ocean Puzzle Play
Floss continues to be interested in puzzles and I’m beginning to introduce some slightly trickier ones. The turtle is a great 2 piece, chunky puzzle and the basket contains other sea animals as either 2 or 3 piece. The two piece fish was the other main one she liked. It’s an Orchard under the Sea set, but I’m not sure they still make it (this one is similar). I’ve got a plan for some homemade ones this week.
Update – Homemade Jigsaw Puzzles
Floss keeps trying with the puzzles we’ve had out, but I’ve decided to make a puzzle myself that will hopefully help bridge the gap from the peg puzzles she’s been doing and these two piece puzzles. Using pictures from Twinkl.co.uk I printed and laminated a few sea dwellers. I then cut them in different ways; I’ll let you know how she gets on.
Floss loved these and I think really liked that they were real images rather than illustrated images. I’ll be making more of these for other topics.
Ocean Project Ideas for Kids
Rainbow Jellyfish
I’m a bit of a hoarder; I don’t like throwing something away that I think might come in useful someday. Are you with me or on the other half’s team minimalist?!
Well my stash got some use today. I found ribbons, buttons and some silver card. On YouTube I found this lovely, short clip of a jellyfish set to classical music.
I played this while we made our rainbow jellyfish and there were lots of wows from Floss as she watched. Floss is 20 months, but quite dexterous; she has also passed that mouthing stage so I feel quite comfortable using some resources under careful supervision such as buttons.
I used glue dots for the buttons so that they would stick easily; Floss put all of these on herself. She chose where her ribbons would go and was quite particular about having them level and helped me press down the sellotape that I had positioned. Once it was finished she held her jellyfish, dancing it around to the music. This was super simple to set up and low mess.
Ocean Theme Invitation Scene
I’ve used sticky backed plastic, taped down with masking tape so that the sticky side is facing out. I placed this on top of four different blue cards that I stuck up first. Wool for seaweed with an extra layer of masking tape to hold in place. I cut out ocean animals and then laminated them.
It took me a while to cut around each creature, so it got me thinking about using stickers as they are pre-cut. I found a book called – Coral Reef Sticker Facts – in my stash and tried these through the laminator and they worked perfectly.
I used a little mini suitcase to put some of the creatures in and put some right in front and that was it. If I’d have used only the stickers it would have been super quick as well as a very simple ocean invitation.
Floss loved this activity. You could certainly expand for older children and look at the different layers of the ocean and which creatures live in different layers. Becca has some beautiful resources for looking at oceans.
Small world Play
I can’t tell you how much I’m in love with our new copper play tray. It was from a car boot sale and I’m delighted to give it a new home. A shallow pool of water, a couple of pebbles, some sea animals and a couple of boats was enough to keep Floss entertained for some time. It’s one of those activities she continues to return to throughout the day.
Small world play is one of Floss’s favourite types of play. Often they’re made up of bits and bobs I’ve collected over the years. They’re quick to set up, I have all the resources stored in jars and boxes ready to go, and result in lots of independent play.
As I mentioned earlier, we now have an Inspire My Play Tray that we adore and wish had been around when Floss was much younger. One of the main reasons is that they clean up very quickly.
Here’s a link to a small world ocean set up and how I made it. Sarah at How Wee Learn has recently curated a list of great ocean creative projects. They’re from different bloggers that you can find here.
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As always, I would recommend adult supervision with activities and take care to ensure the items you are using are suitable for your child in both age and development. Specifically, with outdoors, I think it’s really important to make sure that you reassess risks before each time you allow access toys and resources. At a school I used to work in was next to a road and we always had to make sure that nothing had blown or been thrown in. It’s also good to consider how you will explain safety aspects such as some things being dangerous to eat in gardens and woods. The views expressed are my own.