I love teaching about the ocean!!!

I'm sure we all have a favorite thematic unit we enjoy teaching. Mine is the ocean! I love teaching about the various animals and aspects of ocean life. It all started when I was an intern eons ago. My student teaching was in the spring and the timing was perfectly aligned for me to teach the ocean unit when I was to take over the class. I had an amazing mentor teacher that let me sift through her ocean unit weeks ahead of time and really develop and awesome unit. With each book I picked up, I got wonderful ideas of comprehension lessons, crafts, math center, etc to go with. Over the years, I have added tremendously to this unit. I probably have enough activities and books to teach ocean for MONTHS now in all different grade levels! I don't know if it's because it was because ocean was the first unit I every taught or if it's because all of the ocean animals just amaze me, but I LOVE teaching about the ocean!

Last year, I lent my unit to my oldest daughter's preschool teacher. She was new to teaching (had only been teaching for a couple of months) and asked if she could borrow a few ocean book (we had become very friendly since I was her room mom and she knew that I had been a teacher before having kids). I almost jumped for joy when she asked! I'd been out of the classroom for four years and was so excited to see all of my beloved ocean stuff again. When I got home, I quickly dug out the multiple ocean bin out from under my stairs and loaded them in the car to take to Ms. M the next morning. She was so appreciate and I was so excited to watch my little girl learn about all the wonders of the ocean. Each day my daughter would come home to tell me about how she learned octopi or starfish and I would just light up listening to her because she had also discovered the same love of all things ocean.

What is your favorite unit to teach?

P.S.~ Be on the look out! If I can rustle up the time, I will be posting some ocean goodness!