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Theme Overview
Welcome to May! While the topic of oceans and other bodies of water and the creatures that live there is something that can be used year-round, it is particularly well suited for warmer months. This theme also provides opportunities for exploration across the curriculum. You may choose to create a theme for your classroom that incorporates most or all of the suggested activities, or you might select just a few to support your own curriculum needs.  

National Standards Correlations
The activities in this unit support a variety of national standards. Every activity supports a subset of the standards listed below.

Relevant standards for English/Language Arts as stated by the International Reading Association and National Council of Teachers of English:

• Apply a wide range of strategies to comprehend, interpret, evaluate, and appreciate texts.
  
• Use a variety of technological and informational resources to gather and synthesize information to create and communicate knowledge.
• Use spoken, written, and visual language to accomplish their own purposes (learning, enjoyment, and exchange of information).

Relevant standards for science instruction as described in the National Science Education Standards include:

• Ask a question about organisms in the environment.       
• Develop understanding of the characteristics of organisms.
  
• Develop understanding of life cycles of organisms.
  
• Develop understanding of organisms and environments.
  

Relevant standards for math instruction as set forth by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics:

• Acquire confidence in using mathematics meaningfully.
• Construct, read, and interpret displays of data.

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Thematic Activities
By preschool and early elementary school, most students are familiar with many of the animals that live in oceans and other bodies of water. This unit builds on students' interest and prior understanding by exposing them to some new animals, as well as by focusing students' attention on interactions between animals and their watery environments and how their adaptations enable them to survive. Related activities also build on students' excitement about the topic as they read nonfiction, experience poetry, practice math skills, and explore art.

This unit addresses the following concepts and skills, which are frequently taught in the early primary grades:

• classification (Ocean Life);
• read in the genres of poetry and nonfiction (Pond Mini-Books, Sea Turtles);
• observe and describe (Something Fishy);
• counting, addition, and subtraction (Lily Pad Points);
• life cycles (Tadpole Transformation);
• animal adaptation to its environment (Sea Turtles, Whales, Playing It Safe, Racing Downstream, Something Fishy);
• environments and ecosystems (Creatures of the Sea, Exploring Oceans on the Web, Sea Turtles, Pond Mini-Books, Ocean Life).

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Creatures of the Sea and Exploring Oceans on the Web
(Grades PreK–2)
The Internet is a great place to obtain information. Use the sites on these Internet Field Trips as an introduction to this unit, or to obtain background information on oceans.

Learning Objectives
By participating in these activities, students will:

• find out about ocean creatures;
• discover features of oceans;
• use the Internet to obtain information.

Steps

1. Review the sites featured on the Internet Field Trips to familiarize yourself with the content available.
   
2. With students, make a K-W-L chart about oceans, or simply create a list of questions students have about the ocean and the creatures that live there.
   
3. If resources permit, visit the sites featured as a class. The Creatures of the Sea field trip is geared towards slightly younger learners, but the sites in Exploring Oceans on the Web also have information that young learners might find interesting.
   
4. If it is not possible to go through the sites as a group, use the sites to help students find the answers to their questions. If your students are pre-readers, demonstrate for them how you use the computer to find information and learn new facts, and let students view the photographs at the recommended sites. Explain to students how the Internet can be a useful tool to find information about a topic in which they are interested.

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Leatherback Sea Turtles
(Grades 1–2)
Turtles are familiar animals to most students, and some may have even had one as a pet. Build on this interest with this photo-story about the endangered leatherback turtles.

Learning Objectives
By participating in this activity, students will:

• find out about the behavior and physical characteristics of sea turtles;
  
• learn about life cycles;
  
• discover how scientists investigate sea turtles;
  
• expand content-area vocabulary;
  
• read nonfiction.
  

Steps

1. Begin with a class discussion about turtles. Do students know that there are different kinds of turtles? If so, make a list of different kinds of turtles.
2. Explain to students that they are going to find out about one kind of turtle — the leatherback sea turtle. These turtles are endangered. Do students know what "endangered" means?
3. Click through the photo-story with your students. More advanced readers may be able to read the story on their own. If students find a particular fact interesting, you can click to learn more. These links go to the Sea World Web site, though, which is written for more advanced readers.
4. After reading the story, ask students to summarize what they have read. Can students describe the life cycle of the sea turtle? What do students think of the work scientists are doing to try to save these animals? Were students surprised that turtles lay eggs? What other animals lay eggs?
5. On May 3, students will be able to interview a scientist online. After the interview, they will be able to read the scientist's answers to other kids' questions.
6. As an extension, discuss other endangered animals with students. Invite students to use library and Internet resources to find out more about endangered animals and the efforts of scientists and others to save them.

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Pond Mini-Books
(Grades PreK–2)
Many different plants and animals live in ponds. These mini-books describe pond life, as well as providing practice with nonfiction for early readers. Who Lives in the Pond? (PDF) is appropriate for beginning readers, and The Busy Pond (PDF) is geared towards slightly more advanced readers.

Learning Objectives
By participating in these activities, students will:

• learn about plants and animals in a pond ecosystem;       
• practice reading nonfiction.

Steps

1. Begin by gathering students for a discussion about ponds. Have students ever visited a pond? What kinds of plants and animals did they find there? Make a list of as many pond plants and animals as students can think of on chart paper or the chalkboard. If feasible, take a class field trip to a local lake or pond.
   
2. Copy the mini-books and distribute them to students. For the youngest students, you may want to enlarge the pages and use the book (particularly, Who Lives in the Pond?) for a read-aloud or shared reading before having students color the illustrations and read it on their own.
   
3. After students have completed the mini-books, continue the discussion. Can students think of ways that plants and animals depend on each other in a pond? (For instance, animals may need certain kinds of plants for food.) What might happen to the pond if one kind of plant or animal died out?
   
4. You may also wish to use these mini-books to demonstrate for students the difference between fiction and nonfiction. For instance, Make Way for Ducklings is a fictional story. The mini-books also include ducks, but they are nonfiction.
   
5. If time permits, explore other pond-related activities, such as: visiting local ponds to observe plant and animal life, constructing food chains or food webs that might exist in ponds, making 3-D models of ponds, or creating a terrarium pond.

Tadpole Transformation (PDF)
(Grades K–2)
While young students are familiar with frogs, do they know that adult frogs look very different from their young?

Learning Objectives
By participating in this activity, students will:

• explore the life cycle of frogs;
  
• learn content-related vocabulary (metamorphosis);
  
• make a puppet.
  

Steps
Directions for introducing this activity and background information are provided with the lesson itself, as well as instructions for making the tadpole puppets. As an extension activity, discuss other animals and their young. Can students think of other animals that undergo metamorphosis? (The transformation of a caterpillar into a butterfly is one that is familiar to most young students.) How are these types of changes different from the changes humans go through as they grow up? As an entirely different type of extension activity, invite students to hop like frogs! But how do they think tadpoles might move?

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Adding Lily Pad Points
(Grades K–2)
Frogs are one type of animal that can be found in a pond environment. Students help frogs hop onto lily pads while they build basic math skills in this game.

Learning Objectives
By participating in this activity, students will:

• practice basic computation skills (addition and subtraction);
• cooperate in playing a game.

Steps

1. Follow the directions given in the lesson to have students prepare the game materials.
2. Invite students to play the game! You may want to keep pencils and paper handy so that students can keep track of their scores.
3. Encourage older students to think of ways to make the game more complex. For instance, students may add 3 to every number they land on, or they may double the last number they land on.
4. If students enjoy this game, they may be interested in creating their own games with other aquatic animals. In this game, frogs land on lily pads. In another game, beavers could land on logs, turtles in nests (in the sand), tropical fish on coral reefs, and so forth.

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Ocean Life
(Grades PreK–K)
Many different kinds of plants and animals live in the ocean, and they adapt in various ways to life underwater. What things do not belong in the ocean?

Learning Objectives
By participating in this activity, students will:

• recognize that different kinds of plants and animals belong to different environments;
• practice classification skills.

Steps

1. Begin with a class discussion about the ocean. What plants and animals live there? List them on chart paper or on the chalkboard. What do ocean animals need to do to be able to live underwater? (Have a way to get air — breathing through gills or holding their breath.)
   
2. If possible, bring in books about the ocean. Invite children to look through them. Do they see anything that they did not expect to see in the ocean? If possible, show pictures of some of the unusual creatures that live at the deepest depths of the ocean.
   
3. Copy and distribute the reproducible page. Have students circle the things on the page that do not belong.
4. Review the activity with students. Why did students circle the things they did? How did they know those things did not belong in an ocean?

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Whales
(Grades 1–2)
Whales are some of the largest creatures in the ocean. Students may be surprised to learn that whales are mammals, not fish.

Learning Objectives
By participating in this activity, students will:

• learn about characteristics of whales (size, feeding habits);
  
• discover the differences between fish and mammals;
• increase content-area vocabulary;
• create a whale puppet.
  

Steps
Detailed directions for activities are given in the lesson itself. You will also find literature tie-ins and background information about whales. You may want to begin the lesson by explaining to students that whales are mammals, not fish, and describing the mammalian characteristics of whales. In addition, the activities in this lesson use vocabulary that is likely to be unfamiliar to students (plankton, krill, baleen). Before the activities, you may wish to write these words on chart paper or on word strips for students to use as a reference. Define these terms for students, and refer back to them as necessary during the activities. As a follow-up activity, discuss other sea creatures that are also not fish (dolphins, for instance). With older students, you may also wish to create a Venn diagram that shows the characteristics all these creatures have in common, as well as the ways in which they differ.

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Playing It Safe
(Grades 1–2)
Ocean animals keep themselves safe from predators in a variety of ways. This reproducible explores one of those ways.

Learning Objectives
By participating in this activity, students will:

• discuss how animals are adapted to their environment;
• find out how ocean animals protect themselves from predators;
• learn content-area vocabulary.

Steps

1. Begin with a class discussion about ocean animals and what they need to survive. Animals need to keep themselves safe from other animals. Ask students to name different ways ocean animals can keep themselves safe (camouflage, swimming in large groups, body parts that can protect them) and list them on chart paper or on the chalkboard.
   
2. Copy the reproducible and distribute it to students. Younger students may need help filling it out. Alternatively, you could copy the activity onto a transparency and do it as a class activity using an overhead projector.
   
3. After students have completed the reproducible, review it as a class. What did students draw for their imaginary creatures?
   
4. Follow up with a discussion about adaptation. Guide students to understand how animals must have certain adaptations in order to survive in their environments. Can students think of ways in which other ocean (or other aquatic) animals are adapted to their environments?

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Racing Downstream
(Grades K–2)
Ocean animals are not the only aquatic animals that must keep safe from predators. Fish also face predators as they swim downstream in a river.

Learning Objectives
By participating in this activity, students will:

• learn about dangers fish encounter in a river environment;
  
• follow directions to play a game.
  

Steps
Instructions for introducing students to this activity, preparing materials, and game rules are included in this lesson. If your students have also completed the Playing It Safe reproducible above, ask them to compare and contrast the dangers aquatic animals face in the ocean with those they face in a river. Write these similarities and differences on chart paper or on the blackboard. A Venn diagram activity might also help students conceptualize these distinctions. The reproducible showed ways ocean animals keep safe from predators. How might fish keep safe as they swim down the river?

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Something Fishy
(Grades PreK–2)
While many children are familiar with goldfish, this activity helps them explore in detail how goldfish are adapted to their environment.

Learning Objectives
By participating in this activity, students will:

• draw a goldfish;
  
• explore the concept of adaptation;
• make and record observations.
  

Steps
Detailed instructions are included in the lesson itself. This lesson provides an excellent opportunity to introduce or reinforce the concept of adaptation with students. All animals have adaptations which help them to survive in their environments. Can students think of ways in which other animals are adapted to their environments? For older students, this activity can precede or follow up the Playing It Safe reproducible activity in order to allow students to build upon their understanding of adaptation.

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At the Aquarium
(Grades PreK–K)
Many exotic fish can be found in the ocean. Since viewing them in their natural habitats is not always practical, many people visit them in aquariums.

Learning Objectives
By participating in this activity, students will:

• find out about aquariums;
  
• express themselves creatively through drawing.
  

Steps
Instructions, background information, and extension activities are included in the lesson. An alternate way to introduce this activity would be to write the word aquarium on the chalkboard or on chart paper. What letter does aquarium begin with? What are some other words that also begin with the letter a? As an additional extension activity, visit the Building Language for Literacy Language Adventures and investigate the aquarium settings in the game.

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