Session 1

Book: The fantastic undersea life of Jacques Cousteau by Dan Yaccarino
Follow up book: Manfish: The Story of Jacques Cousteau by Jennifer Berne and Eric Puybaret
Focus activity: Watching a short video of Jacques Cousteau then creating a porthole through which creatures of the deep can be viewed.
Resources required: paper plates, strips of tissue paper in shades of blue, glue, permanent pens/crayons (make sure whatever you use does not run when glue is painted over it, and that the colours are strong enough to be visible through the tissue paper), scissors, grey paint (optional – for painting the plates to make them look more like portholes).
Independent activities: Set of ocean factfiles with colouring in and also some maths-based, ocean-themed activities all from learningpage.com (you need to sign up for access to these, but sign up is quick, easy and free)
Additional books: Down, Down, Down: A Journey to the Bottom of the Sea by Steve Jenkins, Star of the Sea: A Day in the Life of a Starfish by Janet Halfmann and Joan Paley

A porthole made from paper plates

1. Take one plate and draw a creature of the deep in the centre of the plate.
2. Glue strips of tissue paper across your plate (this will look best if the tissue paper has previously been scrunched up and is then smoothed out again)
3. Take your second plate and cut out the central circle. Optionally paint this plate gray.
4. Put glue around the rim of the first plate and stick the second plate on top to create your porthole
5. Trim away any excess tissue paper left hanging out between the plates.

Random House has produced a Teacher’s Sheet for The fantastic undersea life of Jacques Cousteau which contains lots of discussion prompts (opens as a pdf document).

Session 2

Book: Immi by Karin Littlewood (which I reviewed here)
Follow up book: Can you catch a Mermaid? by Jane Ray (which Cathy from Nurturestore reviewed here on Playing by the book)
Focus activity: Fishing for words
Resources required: Prepared fishing game made from laminated fish pictures with words from class dictionaries/encyclopedias on the reverse, and fishing rods with magnets on them, based on this earlier project at Playing by the book (but made more robust in order to put up with classroom love!), classroom dictionaries / reference books, record sheet (here’s one I made for us to use), pens (to record catch). Rather than making a new game you could adapt a shop bought one by simply putting stickers with words on the back of the fish.
Independent activities: Collaborative undersea mural from learningpage.com (you need to sign up for access to these, but sign up is quick, easy and free), creating and playing with a beach scene (large tray with some sand, water, plastic ocean animals, shells)
Additional books: Flotsam by David Wiesner (which I reviewed here), More, More, More by Dawn Casey and Nick Price.

Top tip: When preparing the fishing activity make sure you check the words you stick on your fish are actually to be found in the dictionaries / reference books you are using.

Teaching notes to go with the ocean mural

Session 3

Book: Little Boat by Thomas Docherty
Follow up book: 10 little rubber ducks by Eric Carle
Focus activity: Sinking and floating experiment: How does salt effect sinking/floating (see tutorial here at proteacher.org)? Children will be given this sheet to make their predictions and mark the results in plain water and salty water.
Resources required: Large bowls/bucket, salt, measuring jugs, potatoes, carrots, beans, worksheets for each table, water, kettle / warm water in flasks
Independent activities: Creating pictures with ocean and pirate themed stickers
Additional books: Whale by David Lucas (which I reviewed here), Big Blue Whale by Nicola Davies and Nick Maland

Which activities and books catch your eye? What do you think you would have fun doing?

Today’s books is perfect for anyone, adult or child, dreaming of a day on the beach. Traction Man and the Beach Odyssey, the latest book (published today!) from Mini Grey, follows the adventures of superhero Traction Man and his fearless, loyal sidekick, Scrubbing Brush.

Traction Man, the favourite toy of a young boy, is taken on holiday to the seaside where a series of perilous adventures befall him; he is swept out to sea, then washed up in a dank cave, found by another child on the beach, and nearly lost in a tremendous earthquake when the sandcastle he is inhabiting is enthusiastically attacked by a dog.

This story will thrill any child who brings their toys to life and creates adventures, journeys and real-life personas for them. Like the two earlier Traction Man stories (Traction Man is Here and Traction Man Meets Turbodog), this too is pacey, creating just the right amount of manageable anxiety that dissolves in wonderful relief with the resolution of the story. It’s packed with humour and provides parents with plenty of perfect opportunities for silly voices and even singing theme music from thrillers should they really get into the swing of it (I like to read it to my kids with a Sean Connery-esque accent!)

Image reproduced with permission. Inside spread of Traction Man and the Beach Odyssey. Click for large scale image.

Appropriately enough, some of the illustrations recall Marvel comics. They’re eyecatching and reward repeated readings for all the added details tucked away in them. If you’re looking for a superhero story that’s got all the action, excitement and adventure you could possibly want, but without any violence or malevolence, the Traction Man stories are for you. Particularly loved by the boys I’ve been reading to in the year 1 classes at M’s school, the girls too have been asking each week for another Traction Man story.

Those who already love Traction Man will not be disappointed with this new story (let’s hope there are more in the future!), whilst those who are new to the delights of this superhero and his sidekick will be able to adore this book in its own right, before (I’m confident) wanting to track down the two earlier stories.

Now, where we live is just about the furthest you can get from the seaside in the UK, so a trip to the beach isn’t straightforward. But if we can’t go to the beach, what we can do is bring the beach to us! On recent sunny afternoon we began by rockpooling…

We stopped for an icecream….

We enjoyed jumping in the waves…

And of course we made sandcastles which were visited by Traction Man and Scrubbing Brush

Our day at the seaside ended with us eating chips out of newspaper!

The only thing I missed was the sound of the seagulls

Some great seaside music for kids includes:

Some fun activities which could work well alongside Traction Man and the Beach Odyssey include:

What’s your favourite thing about going to the beach? Do your kids have a favourite beach time book?

Thanks go to Random House, the publishers of this brilliant book, for supplying me with a review copy. This review, however, reflects my own and honest opinion.

Photo: Laszlo-photo

With J’s current fish obsession we’re on the look out for books about fish at the moment. One Smart Fish by Chris Wormell was a chance find when we were visiting the Natural History Museum a few weeks back – it’s not a book I had previously heard of – but it’s now definitely one of J’s favourites so far this year.

One Smart Fish tells the story of a crucial evolutionary step – how many millions of years ago some fish left the sea and began life on land. It’s a big topic but through the use of stunning illustrations and perfectly pitched text, liberally sprinkled with humour, Wormell has written the ideal book for introducing the idea of evolution to young children.

Many pages are densely packed with a range of fish of all shapes, sizes, colours and texture, whilst the penultimate double page spread has a hugely detailed expanse of creatures surging out across the land showing the evolution from fish to – eventually – human beings. Like the earlier pictures of fish we can’t help pouring over the illustrations and playing “I spy” – just like we do when reading some other much enjoyed books of ours – Anno’s Journey or The History Puzzle.

One Smart Fish doesn’t attempt to deal with the science or evidence for evolution but it does introduce the concept of evolution exceptionally well. Both M and J find it funny yet brilliant that they are evolved from fish – this idea has really caught their imagination and M in particular has wanted to find out more. That Wormell’s book has so engaged my two kids and got them asking lots of questions is a testament to its brilliance.

Inspired by the range of beautiful and colourful fish in Wormell’s book we set about creating our own ocean full of fish. First I cut out lots of fish shapes from clear plastic containers I’ve been saving (strawberry punnets, for example). The girls used permanent markers (sharpies) to colour in and decorate the fish.

Next they had a lot of fun cleaning out an old fish tank that had been languishing amongst my pots at the back of the garden.

To make the fish appear to be swimming in the tank we attached two threads to each fish. One thread had a bead or a button attached at one end – the girls had an absolutely wonderful time investigating which of their beads and buttons would sink – an activity we have done again since as they enjoyed it so much. The other thread was attached to a small strip of bubble wrap to give the impression of bubbles coming out of the fishes mouths when they were in the water.

The fish tank was filled with water and then we added some sand – this made the water look a little dirty, but the idea was to make it seem more like the ocean than a sterile fish tank.

A few shells and some other marine life (ocotopi and sea horses) were added to complete our land beneath the waves.

We all had a great deal of fun creating this seascape – if you are inspired to do something similar, we’d love to hear about it

One Smart Fish: *** (3 stars)

Some fishy music to create by:

For more songs with an evolutionary theme you could take a look at Songs about Darwin and Evolution from Cells in Culture or Evolution Songs: Celebrating Charles Darwin’s 200th Birthday from Gigwise.


And some more fish activities that might work well alongside this book:

Having read One Smart Fish – the text of which is simple enough for J, at 2, to enjoy and easily follow, I then read the more complex How Whales Walked Into the Sea by Faith McNulty, Ted Rand, and Ted Lewin with M. If you can get hold of it I would urge you do do so as I cannot imagine a better follow-up read to One Smart Fish – it deals with the evolutionary step taken by one branch of mammals that returned to the sea, eventually resulting in whales. I first came across this book thanks to a review over at In need of Chocolate, where you can find a great series of posts about books for kids on evolution and prehistory. If you wanted a book for adults that would go really well with One Smart Fish and How Whales Walked Into the Sea, At the water’s edge by Carl Zimmer comes highly recommended by my wonderful husband!

Now what about you? Do you have any favourite picture books about fish? Or about evolution?