Commotion in the Ocean

One of our recent favorite books is Commotion in the Ocean by Giles Andreae.  Nathan loves listening to  the rhyming paragraphs as well as reading about the creatures under the sea.  The illustrations by David Wojtowycz are bright and colorful and help bring the book to life.   I had several craft ideas in mind for this book, but since I was short on time, we only made two.  If you would like more ideas for sea life projects, such as Lobster, Penguin, Fish, Octopus or Whales, including a fun jellyfish lunch, Check out the kids craft and other project pages on the side bar.

*From the book....

"Jellyfish - the jellyfish just loves to jiggle,

Which other fish think is quite dumb.

She knows that it's not all that useful

But jiggling's lots of good fun."

Our first craft was a jellyfish windsock.

We used paper plates, yellow paint, red, orange and black construction paper, google eyes, orange and red yarn and crepe paper, glue and a black ribbon.

Cut a little bit off the bottom of the paper plate, just enough to round the edges and curve it.

Paint the back of the plate yellow.

Cut out some small circles using the red and orange construction paper and a smile out of the black paper.

Once the plate is dry, glue on the circles, mouth and google eyes.

Cut strips of yarn and crepe paper about 12 inches or so long and glue them to the back of the plate.

Loop the black ribbon and staple it the top of the plate to hang Mr. Jellyfish up.

Our second project is called "Ocean in a Bottle"

You can find the complete instructions Here

Basically, you will need an empty 1 liter bottle, water, blue food coloring, mineral oil, super glue and a funnel.

(As you can see, we added some little friends to our bottles...found these at the Dollar Tree)

Fill the bottle a little more than half way with water.

Add a few drops of blue food coloring to the water.

Add the fish, or whatever you want to put in the bottle (glitter, other trinkets, etc)

Carefully, using the funnel if needed, pour the mineral oil into the bottle.

To seal the bottle, use a bit of super glue on the lid or the threads of the bottle and tighten the cap on the bottle.

Ocean in a Bottle....The boys had so much fun with this little science experiment.  They have played with and rolled their bottles all over the place, including down the slide haha.

Special thanks to my friend, Susan...for providing the above link!

Linking to....

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*Disclosure: I received a copy of this book from Tiger Tales for review purposes only.  The opinions and projects herein are my own and were not influenced by Tiger Tales.