Using sight, sound, touch and taste to experience the ocean and its creatures!!

This week we are learning about the ocean and its creatures! Early in the week we watched a video online of a real, live octupus underwater...well, we watched it about 3 times because it was REALLY fascinating and the squeals of delight and amazement were too precious to not be repeated! Then we tasted salt water and talked about how the ocean is very salty and not very good water to drink. On Wednesday I was very excited for our little tactile experiment using plastic bags, blue hair gel and gummy fish to create an ocean and fish we could squish. The kids definitely LOVED squishing around the fish in the gel, the only problem was that eventually the fish disolved into the hair gel creating a nice purple mush that you all got to see when brought home! At least it was kept contained in the ziploc! :PWell, hopefully all the way home..:)  We also listened to different nature sounds; the kids did a great job distinguishing between a babbling brook and the ocean. Of course we also read some sea creature themed books(Commotion in the Ocean and an underwater animal pop up book) and sang our fish song with hand motions each day, along with craft projects. Now if only there was a Red Lobster nearby for a field trip..now that would make our week complete! :P