Have you ever seen a whale in real life? I have not, but I imagine it would be amazing! It would be pretty awesome to see those huge animals dive through the water, spitting water from their blowhole. Did you know a blue whale is 2 school buses long? Wow. Little Miss loved learning about whales. These whale toddler activities were really amazing and helped Little Miss learn so much, not just about whales, but about how to do things and how to be creative. This was really a fun week of activities!
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Book recommendations:
Toy recommendations:
Whale Toddler Activities:
Sensory bins are an excellent teaching resource and so much fun to play with.
Our sensory bin included:
- Taste-safe sand
- Shells
- Fake grass paper shreds (seaweed)
- Glass marble beads
- Orca whale
- Blue Whale
Here are some activity ideas:
- Build the bin together as you read Hello World! Ocean Life.
- Talk about where whales live and how they breathe
- Hide the marbles in the seaweed and have the whales find them
- Bury the seashells in the “sand”
Using homemade Jell-O or Jell-O from the box, make ocean Jell-O!
After mixing the Jell-O, add it to a large dish and then add a whale, glass marble beads, fish, etc. Make this the night before so it is ready for playtime the next day. Encourage your toddler to dig through the Jell-O to retrieve the items.
This is great for motor skills and the sensory experience.
(If you are making your own Jell-O, mix plain gelatin, water and blue food coloring.)
Make this beautiful Orca painting. For the background we used bleeding issue paper. (You can see how to do this if you follow me on Instagram @blueberriesmash.)
Then I cut out the shapes for an orca whale using the template below and little Miss and I glued it together as we looked at our Schleich orca and talked about what they look like.
Download an Orca whale cut out sheet to use as a template by clicking here.
This painting project teaches several new techniques to toddlers, opening up their minds to the possibilities with paint.
You may want to plan to do this project over a 2 day period, allowing paint to dry in between.
Check out the full project tutorial here.
This project was amazing to see how it developed. I started by just giving Little Miss a canvas, blue paint, green paint, and white paint. Then I turned on whale songs on YouTube. At first Little Miss just used her brush to add paint to the canvas. Then she used her hands to make big splotches of paint. After that, I showed her how she could use her brush to make splatters of paint and plastic to make textures. Then she really started experimenting, using a tissue, the paint bottles, a spray bottle, tape, and other objects around us to make patterns in the paint. Having the calming sound of the whale songs in the background really helped her keep her focus and stay calm.
This project is great for helping children to learn and grow cognitively, creatively, in their motor skills, and their attention span!
Are you looking for more ocean inspired activities for toddlers? Check out these other activities:
