Ocean Animal Bin

Objective: Open exploration of ocean animal life while interacting with water and sand.

Basic Materials:

This bin consists of water, white sand purchased from our local home improvement store (to be added before water), a few drops of blue food coloring (optional), and ocean animal figurines. We are using an Ocean animal “Toob” by Safari Ltd, which you can find at your local craft store, and are also sold on Amazon.com. Having a towel handy with this one is also a good idea, old towels and beach towels work great!

BONUS

Ocean Animal Rescue:

As an added bonus for both the littles and the little olders you can create an ocean animal rescue from marine pollution! Using odd items around the house (pipe cleaner, bubble wrap, string, a rubber band, whatever you have) to wrap around the figurines. This serves as a transfer activity and additional fine motor work to pull all the materials off and set the animals free, returning them to the ocean all better!

While I gather Yumi is a bit young for the concept, she can still benefit from the fine motor activity that is pulling the pipe cleaner and other items off of the animals!

Don’t forget to provide a discard bin!

Benefits:

This bin serves as a great introduction to ocean life and sea creatures! It supports language development as I name them while she plays with them and point out anatomy as she picks them up (i.e. tail, teeth, fin). It offers a good sensory experience as well. Yumi is able to splash and slosh the water around. She really got into the sand aspect, scooping and squeezing the sand in her fists and in between her fingers. Having both water and sand makes this bin a huge hit!