Button Ocean

This one is all about keeping the preschool in the unit study! J4 is all about his home preschool. Just yesterday while out on errands, he announced to woman in line behind me that he was doing home preschool. This is notable because the three older kids all went to the same wonderful little preschool- a vestige of our pre-homeschooling days.

I got the idea of a button ocean from Pink and Green Mama's Ocean in a Box. I'm not into sand in the house and I wasn't even into the aquarium rocks she had chosen, but I love buttons! And so do my kids. So first we sorted the colors into a muffin tin!

Where are all the blue buttons and ocean green buttons? R9 finds a few more...

J4 held this one up and said, "This button is HUMONGOUS!" J4 loves to use the word humongous. Cracks me up.

Ok so we are somewhat short on blue buttons...I think we just need less critters in our button ocean. Don't you think?

Selkie! Yes...there are Nim characters in our box.

While at the school table J4 announced that he had put Selkie on her rock. E10 went to find said rock to add it to the ocean. He also pointed out a sea anemone. Loved hearing my 4yo say that word!

I found this coloring sheet at the Aquarium of the Pacific website. This one is from the Aquarium on Wheels pdf downloads. He was playing with the button ocean's sea turtle and was able to tell me why Chica the turtle came to the island every year- to play and to leave eggs was his reply. See? He really is listening during read alouds!

He requested a Nim journal...that would be a good idea he said. So, I found him a sea turtle picture. These will go into his ocean notebook along with anything else he does during our unit study of the ocean. If I can keep him in fun, preschool-y activities and he enjoys sitting up at the table with us to have fun...what a year this will be! I think we may have turned a corner kids. Wow.

There you have it...an ocean study update...preschool style. And not to worry. The button ocean is in a workbox that will wait for him each day during our unit.