In Term 1 Team Ehlers and Miss Alana’s Bananas spent four wonderful Friday mornings just North of Port Noarlunga Jetty for beach Nature Play sessions.
We arrive at school, Slip Slop Slap after checking the UV Rays, get our beach shoes on and bags ready and head for the beach. A short walk down the hill and then we are ready to sit on the sandy carpet ready for our instructions and challenge!
Week 1 – Sand Castle City, create and link!
Week 2 – Tunnelling, creating roads with bridges and tunnels!
Week 3 – Water Channelling
Week 4 – Create with tools and skills from previous sessions!
Back at school we link our Beach School sessions across the curriculum to lessons through the week. With the Ocean being our Term 1 theme and focus we dived deep into a range of concepts and applied our experiences and knowledge across our learning.
Writing Recounts – Beach School (Time Phrases)
Art Reflections – What did we notice? Draw and reflect on our lessons.
Beachcombing – We have learnt about the items you can find on the beach (Port Jackson Shark Eggs, Squid Eggs, Shells, Coral, Seaweed, Cuttlebones, Moon Snail Eggs, Sea Urchins and many more…) Each item is worth a certain amount of points.
Big Books – Each week we read a Big Book daily about our theme. These have included Ocean Habitats, Ocean Animals and their Babies, Fish and Ocean Seasons.
Big Book Art – We link our Big Book knowledge and vocabulary to our Literacy Art. We have created lots of different sea creatures including Starfish, Whales and Seahorses.
We have just LOVED our sandy Classroom 🐚 🌊
The class brainstormed some highlights….
Connecting tunnels and making a base/city/castle with a moat 🤩
Bird tracks 🐦
Beachcombing finds 🐚
Teamwork was SO good! 😎
Very safe and sensible walking to and from the beach. We even got a flash from the fire truck! 🚒
Channelling water up the beach.
Very organised 🧢 and quick to put their shoes and socks on even quicker. 👟
Vocab and imagination were at play 🧠
Friendly Facts:
Did you know that there are seabirds that descend on the Arctic in Summer? The ammonia from their poo evaporates and helps form clouds which reflect the sun’s light and regulate temperature.
Did you know the cuttlebone is the same as a backbone for the cuttlefish? A cuttlefish has 8 short arms and 2 tentacles. It is related to the squid. The bone also acts like a life jacket and keeps it afloat.
They can also change colour!
Thanks to all the parent helpers during these beach weeks!
Team Ehlers and the Bananas 10/10 recommend getting out of the classroom and heading down to the beach to learn, problem solve, work as a team and get sandy!
