The Ocean Guide by The Peaceful Press: A Review
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If you’ve read any of our past reviews of The Peaceful Press, you likely already know how much we enjoyed The Playful Pioneers curriculum – a literature and project-based curriculum.
The Peaceful Press has since released a handful of month-long courses including The Garden Guide, Mountain Guide, Tree Guide, and Ocean Guide, just to name a few. I decided it was about time we tried them out and I’m so glad we did! Please continue reading below for more about The Peaceful Press’s Ocean Guide.
If you’re looking for a relaxed curriculum full of books and hands-on learning, the Ocean Guide is for you! Even if you don’t live near the beach, you can still benefit from everything this curriculum has to offer.
Designed for children ages 2-5, you can easily make this curriculum suitable for older children as well.
Miss 2, 5, and 8 have all really been enjoying the Ocean Guide this week and we can’t wait to dive in for more fun next week!
We started by reading the suggested books for week one as well as a few additional ocean-themed books we found from our own bookshelves.
I also made a few additional printables to go along with the curriculum (not that it really needed any – it comes with quite a few – I just love making printables and all the goodies the Ocean Guide came with really inspired me to create a few additional printables of my own).
I uploaded all the printables I created to the resource library – you are welcome to download them and incorporate them with your learning, if you’d like.
One of our new favorite books, Seashells by the Seashore, even included a pull-out shell guide which the girls were really excited about. They immediately started rummaging through our shell collection to see which shells they could match up.
After a bit of reading, Miss 8, who has been learning cursive this year, was excited to trace the cursive “s” with shells. What a great way to reinforce what she has been learning this year!
Next, we hid turtle eggs “cotton balls” in a basket of silks (the guide mentioned hiding them in sand but I opted for a slightly less messy option, although we will definitely try the sand option shortly).
Next, we examined sand and shells with a magnifying glass.
We even pulled out our eeBoo science cards and found quite a few that paired well with our ocean learning unit.
We made boats from blocks, counted shells, made playdough sand castles, and made letters from clay.
We even made our own kelp forest and painted sea animals with watercolor paints.
There are so many more fun activities in the Ocean Guide that we can’t wait to try, including:
- Creating an under-the-sea stained glass
- Making cupcake liner fish
- Making a sea urchin from clay and toothpicks
- Pouring sand through a funnel using a measuring cup
- Making our own tea to drink
- Going on a treasure hunt for objects around the house that begin with “B”
- Practicing folding beach towels
- Mixing blue and green colored water on coffee filters
- And so much more!!
I honestly can’t recommend this curriculum enough! It was easy to print and prep too. In fact, I printed the guide at home, three-hole punched it, and put it in a binder. It was ready to go in just minutes! There weren’t too many pages so I didn’t take it to Kinko’s and have it bound like I did with the Playful Pioneers curriculum.
Money and time-saving printing tips:
We signed up for the HP Instant Ink program over a year ago and absolutely love it! They offer several different plans (such as $4.99 for 100 pages a month) and will automatically send you new cartridges before you even need them.
We are now saving SO MUCH money (and time) on ink and I don’t feel guilty about printing out new printables and playdough mats each day. If you want to check it out, ordering through our link here will give you 1 free month.
You can use just about any HP printer but we’ve been using this compact one and absolutely love it! The color is gorgeous and matches my decor (we’ll call that a win!) and the size is smaller than any printer I’ve ever owned which is great for small spaces (or living room/dining room offices).
Between HP Instant Ink and our compact printer, my printing life truly has become so much easier to print all these fun playdough mats and activity sheets we’ve been making lately.
Also, to round the corners on printables, we recommend this corner punch. It was such a great investment and is used all the time! It works great on everything from printer paper and cardstock to laminated paper. It really takes the printables to the next level! Also, it’s nice not to have to worry about getting poked with those sharp corners.
Click here to visit The Peaceful Press and purchase the Ocean Guide.
If you’d like to see all the ocean-themed crafts and activities we added to our lessons from the Ocean Guide, check out the links below.
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