The theme this week for Discover & Explore is Beach. We are inviting you to share your favorite beach activities, crafts, snacks, tips, and resources for kids at the end of this post.
After making our mini play house we were eager to use it for some of our beach activities, so we decided to set up a beach small world. It turned out to be a wonderful place for pretend play and sensory exploration.
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Find all of our beach activities in our printable lesson plans
for home preschool and preschool classrooms.
Materials
- Sand
- Shells
- Water
- Glass beads
- Small pieces of drift wood
- Mini play house or any small structure that you would like to use as a beach house
- Large bin-We used our Step2 Water Table
Lovey immediately started coming up with stories and acting out play scenes. It didn’t take long before we had some princess visitors at the beach house. (Any small figures that can get wet will work great.)
Soon the water was full of fishy friends from our Safari Ltd Coral Reef Toob.
By combining the sensory elements along with the small world scene, both my toddler and preschooler had a lot of options for play. Tinker loved playing with the water and shells. She spent a lot of time feeling the water on her hands, listening to the sound of the shells moving around, and examining the details of the individual shells.
She did a great job of letting big sister use the beach house for pretend play for a couple days, but after sissy gave Tinker the go-ahead she was very excited to play “Hurricane.” We moved the house so it wouldn’t get ruined, and Tinker LOVED combining all of the sand, shells and water into one collection. This added a whole new layer of sensory play, that kept her busy for quite a while.
And if you’re wondering about clean up, each of the girls got to play with a colander. They sifted and collected the shells and gems, and clean up was just another part of the play!
Get a Full Week of Beach Theme Learning and Play
Save time and get right to the playful learning with our printable lesson plan sets. Each set includes over 30 playful learning activities related to the theme, and we’ve provided different versions for home preschool families and classroom teachers so all activities are geared directly toward your needs.
This set includes active hands-on learning ideas and the following printables:
1) Beach 5 Senses Recording Sheet
2) Initial Sound Clip Cards
3) Seashell and Bucket Rhyming Game (-en, -at, -et, and -ug word families)
4) Seashore Counting Mats for Numbers 1-15
5) At the Beach Emergent Reader (2 Versions)
6) 1-35 Beach Theme Calendar and Number Cards
7) Beach Pattern and Counting Seashell Cards
8) Sand Castle Shape Matching Game
9) Uppercase and Lowercase Alphabet Matching Flip Flop Cards
Get Your Lesson Plans
Home Preschool Beach Theme Lesson Plans
Preschool Classroom Beach Theme Lesson Plans
Find more inspiration in our ocean theme.
Cathy Owen
Hi, this looks like a really beautiful activity! I only just found your blog and it looks fantastic. But where oh where did you get your cool sand and water table? I just love that design. I followed the link and it went to a completely different looking table. I even looked up other seand tables by play2 but none of them look like yours! I just love the design of your one but can’t find it anywhere.
I have a fabulous loose parts beach activity that I would love to send you, but I can’t find where to put it. how do I send it to you please?
Shaunna Evans
I’m so glad you like the small world! The link in the post is to the bin we have. It’s the Step2 WaterWheel Activity Play Table. The water wheel shown in the Amazon photo is removable. Then you have the plain base which is how we primarily use it for small world play.
Sugar Aunts
I love how Cinderella joined in on the fun, the colors are beautiful! We have a bunch of seashells and will have to try something like this. We will be featuring this tomorrow on Share it Saturday.
Shaunna
Thank you! The seashells and water alone were a wonderful sensory experience. I hope you get the chance to give it a try.
jaime
thanks for linking up to the kids co-op. I am featuring 2 of your post today:-)
Susan
Would love to know where you found that sensory/water table. It is phenomenal!
Shaunna
Thanks! We use our Step2 Water Table. I’ve added the direct link on Amazon to the post above. We use it all of the time!
Deb
Thanks for the great ideas related to beach week.
Stephanie
I love this small world! I think the pretty shells under the water are my favorite part 😉
Kristen B
This is awesome. I really need to buy a water table for outdoor fun for my kids.
I would love for you to come link up at Artsy Play Wednesday.
Play Create Explore
What gorgeous small world play! I love it!
Shaunna
Thank you!
Jenn L
Oh my goodness, this is ADORABLE! I’m sure that it was a blast to play with. We don’t live near the beach, so this would be a fun way to explore it from home. 🙂
Shaunna
Thanks so much! It was really soothing and fun to play with. Hope you get a chance to create your own!
Melanie
I love this idea! We are just starting a beach theme, so I don’t have as post to share yet.
Shaunna
Thank you! Hope you find lots of inspiration for your beach theme in the posts shared.
Samantha @ Stir the Wonder
Love that beach sensory/small world/water table! Haven’t written up our beach posts yet, now I have some motivation to write them out and post them in the next 2 weeks so I can link up! Unless you think my Ocean Sensory Table is beachy enough? Then I can link that up today…
Shaunna
Thank you! If you get a chance to write up your beach posts, I’d love to have them here. Go ahead and hold onto the ocean post for our upcoming sea life theme 🙂
Ann @ My Nearest and Dearest
What a beautiful small world! It looks so relaxing (but maybe not when a hurricane blows in 😉 ).
Shaunna
Yes, the hurricane was a bit unsettling 🙂
Ashley
We didn’t really have much in the way of beach posts. 🙁 I did add a photo shoot fail just because it is funny, but you can delete if it doesn’t fit! Too bad this isn’t the beginning of August after our beach themed Poppin’s Book Nook. Then I would have a post for you!
Shaunna
Thanks for sharing…I think your photo shoot fail looks exactly like what would happen if I attempted a beach photo shoot 🙂