Sea Creatures and Dollar Tree Deals

Are you like me?  I ran in Dollar Tree to grab some fish for a new unit I am starting tomorrow and came out with 2 bags full of things.  I always find great teacher things there, and with them only being $1, you can't go wrong.

This is what I was looking for!

This is what I bought!

As the school year begins to wind down, I try to have a few fun units for the students to keep their interest high. In math we are studying measurement, volume, and weight. In science I like to begin a unit on oceans. So I begin with the "Sea Creatures!"  I have used this unit for the past 5 years in kindergarten and will be using it in my first grade classroom this year. To be honest, you could do this in most grades and do additional math using percentages, various units of measurement, and analyze the weight and growth changes. I do a lot of graphing with this unit, and for higher grades you can get even more specific. My classroom was very popular before school with the older students wanting to see how much the sea creatures grew. So I think upper grade students would even get a kick out of this.

Day 1 Sea Creature Observation

I like to begin this unit on a Monday, but it really doesn't matter. In the morning I will introduce my class to our new "class pets", the sea creatures.  They are the small rubbery ocean fish that grow 600% of their original size. Before placing them in the water we examine them using all of our senses. Next students measure and weigh each sea creature and document this information in their notebook.  At the bottom of each page I leave a space for students to write in their own words what their observations were for each sea creature. Students may draw their observations. In kindergarten, I had a few that could only draw pictures and write a few words. Some things to take note of are; the color, how they feel, and how they smell. Have the students generate a list of adjectives they may use in their data collection notebooks. The sea creatures are then placed in a large tub of water to begin to grow.

Stay tuned! Tomorrow I will show you what happened.  I will also be sharing my Observation and Data Collection Notebook that I made for each child.

  Now go to Dollar Tree and buy these Sea Creatures if you want to have some math and science fun!

You can use the same ones year after year.  The ones out of the packages are the ones I used last year.  They shrink back to almost their original size.  

I will be using this 66 qt. clearview plastic container made by Sterlite for the 

Sea Creatures.

What do you think do you 

want to grow some?