Summer is the perfect time to explore an ocean themed lesson plan with your preschoolers. Check out these engaging ocean activities for preschool to help your kids build early literacy, numeracy, and motor skills. Have fun while learning all about the ocean and the creatures who live under the sea.
Are you planning a family beach vacation? Looking for a way to make preschool extra fun all summer long? Interested in teaching your preschoolers more about the ocean? Then you won’t want to miss these exciting crafts, ocean activities, and our favorite books about the ocean too.
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Ocean Theme Lesson Plan
My ocean themed lesson plan is filled with activities to build early learning skills with your preschoolers. Use this lesson plan filled with 15 different learning activities and resources to explore the ocean with your early learners all week long!
Read Alouds
I’ve included themed read alouds to start each day. Reading. These picture books will teach preschoolers all about the ocean, expand their vocabulary, and encourage curiosity and imagination too. Here’s what’s included:
- Guess Who Ocean Friends by Jodie Shepherd and Laura Ovresat – This colorful book has magnetic flaps that hide surprise ocean friends for your preschoolers to find in a fun interactive exploration of the sea.
- The Big Book of the Blue by Yuval Zommer – This oversized book is filled with top to bottom illustrations and interesting facts to help your preschoolers get excited about the ocean. Check out The Big Sticker Book of Blue for a fun hands-on activity from the same author.
- The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister – This story isn’t just about fish, there’s an important lesson about sharing and making friends for your preschoolers to learn in this beautifully illustrated classic too.
- Ocean Life by Jill McDonald – Part of the Hello World! Series, this title is filled with fun facts that are easy for preschoolers to memorize and bright colorful artwork they’ll love.
- Clumsy Crab by Galloway Ruth – This adorable book contains a cute story your preschoolers won’t forget. They’ll learn how to be inclusive in this tale about a clumsy little crab.
Math Ocean Activities
I’ve included 7 fun math ocean activities for preschool to help you practice early math skills with your preschoolers this summer too. Check out these adorable ocean themed printable activities to build counting skills, practice patterns, learn about subitizing, and more.
Swordfish Links Activity
Practice counting skills and one-to-one correspondence with your preschoolers in this fun twist on counting clip cards. This hands-on activity includes printable swordfish and counting cards to tell your preschoolers how many links to use with each swordfish.
Preschoolers will have fun building their own swordfish by counting out links and connecting them to the fish’s nose. Plus, it’s a great way to build fine motor skills like finger strength and dexterity too.
Deep-Sea Measuring Practice
Learning to measure is an important early math skill for preschool learners to master. With this printable ocean activity for preschool, you can introduce your kids to nonstandard measurement. Preschoolers can measure the sea creatures with a printable seashell ruler.
Fish Scales Spin and Add Game
Have you tried spin and add games with your preschool learners? This ocean activity is one that will engage even those preschoolers who aren’t fond of math.
Use the spinner to discover how many scales to add to your fish. Preschoolers can practice number identification and counting as they identify the number on the spinner. Then, count out the correct number of scales on their fish.
Ocean Patterns Practice
Practicing patterns with preschoolers is an important early math skill. Preschool learners develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills by learning to identify patterns and determine what comes next. These no-prep ocean pattern practice worksheets will help your preschoolers practice these important early math skills while learning about the animals that live under the sea.
Crabby Subitizing Race to 20
Learning to subitize helps to prepare preschool learners for solving simple addition and subtraction equations in less time. Fun ocean activities for preschool like this crabby subitizing race will make it fun for your preschoolers to build subitizing skills this summer.
Jelly Fish Fine Motor Math
Get ready to explore jellyfish with your preschoolers as you build fine motor skills and counting skills at the same time with this fun ocean activity for preschoolers.
Ocean Number Mats
I’m a big fan of learning early math skills like counting, one-to-one correspondence, and number identification with playdough number mats. These ocean-themed number mats are a fun hands-on way to help your preschool learners develop these important early numeracy skills this summer.
Free Ocean Counting Mats
It’s easy to work on counting and recognizing numbers up to 20 with these free ocean themed counting mats.
Use mini erasers, pom poms, or gummy sharks to place the correct number of ocean animals on each counting mat for a fun way to learn this summer.
Ocean Animal Shape Match
Teach shapes this summer with a fun 2d shape game for kids. Simply choose a card and color in the matching shape on either game board.
You can even take this adorable shape worksheet to the next level by using the cards in a memory game.
Language Arts & Literacy Practice
Do you use letters of the week in your preschool classroom or homeschool? Choosing a letter of the week theme like “ocean activities” is a great way to get your preschoolers excited about learning and help them memorize the alphabet too. These ocean activities for preschool are perfect for a letter of the week “O” theme.
Exploring ocean activities with your preschoolers is a great time to practice early literacy skills too. I’ve put together lots of fun language arts activities to help your preschoolers practice rhyming, identifying letters, syllables, beginning sounds, and more. Here are some of the fun ocean activities for preschool in this under the sea lesson plan:
Shark Letters
Get ready to have some fun identifying letters and practicing letter sounds with your preschoolers. This exciting shark themed ocean activity for preschoolers is a no-prep printable you can all have fun with!
You can do so many things with these fun shark letters! Cut them apart and hide them in an ocean sensory bin for a scavenger hunt that’s filled with sensory experiences and letter learning fun. Then, practice saying the letters out loud and reciting the sounds they make together for extra practice.
Compound Word Clams
Explore compound words with this stress-free ocean activity for preschoolers. Print these cute clams to help your preschoolers expand their vocabulary and practice building compound words together in the classroom or at home this summer.
Fishy Syllables
Learning about syllables with preschoolers can be a lot of fun! Try clapping games to help your preschoolers become familiar with identifying syllables. It’s an important early literacy skill to help your preschool learners become strong readers too.
Your little one will love sorting words by their syllable with this hands on ocean activity.
Submarine Sounds
While you’re building early literacy skills and preparing your preschoolers for reading, use this submarine sound activity to practice phonemic awareness in an engaging hands-on learning activity they’ll love.
Crabby Rhymes
I love practicing rhymes with preschoolers! Rhyming is filled with giggles, excitement, and opportunities to have fun learning. In this fun printable activity, you can explore rhymes with the crabs in the ocean.
Nursery rhymes about the sea are a fun place to start. Try these favorites:
- Row Row Row Your Boat
- Once I Caught a Fish Alive
- A Sailor Went to Sea
Then, have fun singing and dancing to ocean songs for more rhyming practice. We love Baby Shark and Down By the Bay. Share some of your favorite ocean rhymes and songs in the comment section. I can’t wait to try some of your favorites with my preschool learners too!
Ocean Easy Reader
If you’re still looking for ocean themed literacy activities, I’ve got the perfect book for you. Grab these ocean emergent readers and let your preschooler trace and read simple words in the book.
Ocean Animal Color by Code Worksheets
Teach all about ocean animals this summer with these adorable ocean animal coloring worksheets.
Simply grab these free, no prep color by code printables and practice various letters, numbers, and subitizing all summer long!
Ocean Alphabet Mats for Preschoolers
Reinforce the letters of the alphabet with these adorable ocean activity mats for kids.
Your students will love learning their uppercase and lowercase letters in a fun ocean theme. Just grab this free ocean printable, identify the lowercase letters in the ocean, and place the correct uppercase fish on top of it.
Ocean Playdough Mats
All kids love Playdough. Whether you want to create your own, or use store bought Play-Doh, these ocean mats are sure to be a hit.
Seashell Easy Reader
Here’s another free printable to keep your little ones learning all summer long. Grab this free seashell book and work on colors and fine motor skills this May.
Ocean Crafts for Preschool
A week of ocean activities for preschool just wouldn’t be complete without some adorable ocean themed arts and crafts. Adding crafts to your preschool lessons gives you extra opportunities to build fine motor skills while helping your preschoolers practice cutting, pasting, and color identification. Plus, these ocean crafts will give your kids a chance to explore their own creativity and build confidence as they express themselves through art.
Printable Ocean Crafts
Some of my favorite crafts to make are my printable ocean crafts for preschool. I love that you and your students get to choose what color each animal will be and the skin tone of the people, by simply changing the color paper that is used.
These ocean animal crafts come with 13 easy and fun crafts for kids including:
- Octopus craft
- Turtle craft
- Whale craft
- Lobster craft
- Crab craft
- Shark craft
- Sea horse craft
- Jellyfish craft
- Dolphin craft
- Fish craft
- Mermaid craft
- Boy and girl snorklers crafts
Goldfish Fingerprint Art
This cute goldfish craft is one that parents are going to love! It’s a great way to preserve those tiny little fingerprints with a unique ocean themed memory you can keep.
Have fun building fine motor skills, exploring colors, and getting creative as you create your own little goldfish with this fun fingerprint painting activity. For even more fun, add an ocean themed snack by sharing some goldfish crackers with your preschoolers when you’re through.
Playdough Jellyfish Tentacles
Sculpting is a creative way to build finger muscles for handwriting with your preschool learners. Plus, it’s a great opportunity to make some 3D art with a fun ocean theme.
Get out the playdough and work together to build jellyfish tentacles. Let your preschoolers explore different methods for forming the tentacles to add a STEM engineering element to your ocean activities for preschool this week.
There are so many fun things you can do with an ocean preschool theme this summer! Add fun ocean-themed videos, movement games, and sensory activities for even more ocean learning fun. This ocean lesson plan is perfect for a week-long theme, but you can add as many activities as you like to make this ocean unit last all month or even all summer if you want!
Share your extra fun ocean activities for preschool in the comment section. I can’t wait to read your ideas and try them with my preschoolers this summer too!
Thank you for all these creative activities!