ENRICHMENT

Dive deep into learning! These ocean-themed activities complement Into the Ocean! with marine life discovery (octopus, anemone artists, King Crab Quartet), environmental action (plastic cleanup, sea otter rescue), counting & music play, and social-emotional discussions about helping others.

For more than just storytelling, these books can be used for enrichment activities. There are two enrichment activities

  • specific to this book, Into the Ocean, and

  • also comparing Into the Ocean with other books in the series

Work on enrichment in observation, counting, science, language and discussion, social-emotional values, and arts and culture. 

Into the Ocean Enrichment

Observation and Comparison

  • Follow the pet: Can you find the dog on every page? 

Counting and Early Math

  • Page-based counting: Count the fish on each page spread where there are fish. Count fish, seagulls, bubbles, and shells.

  • Simple addition: Count the crabs in the kind crab quartet. Do you know what the word quartet means?

Science / How-It-Works

Describe what a chart does:

  • Use the navigation chart in the book: Sailors and divers use charts to show where things are and how deep the water is. A chart is a special map that helps you not get lost.

  • Draw a “chart” of the bedroom. Your bed could be the boat. What object in your room could be a reef? Create symbols on your chart to represent the boat and the reef.

Look at how boats are made:

  • Point to the boat: talk about hull (keeps water out), deck (walk outside), and mast (holds the sail and makes the boat move using wind).

  • What materials do you think our boat in the story is made of? Wood? Metal? What would happen if it had a big hole?”

Learn how scuba diving works:

  • Use the illustration to highlight: tank (air to breathe), mask (to see under water), fins (swim better). People bring air in tanks so they can breathe under water.”

Language, Story, and Spot-the-Next-Adventure

  • Name objects in the book: treasure chest, binoculars, anemone to naturally grow vocabulary

  • When they go to bed, who do you think will go on the next adventure? Where might they go?

Social-Emotional Themes

  • Point to pajamas, tooth brushing, tidying the room: What do you do to prepare for bed like the character?

  • Identify helpers and the problem: Who helped when things went wrong? How did they help?

  • Leaving things better than we find them: Did they tidy up anything in the story and leave things better than they found them? What could we do in our neighborhoods, schools, and homes to help like the characters in the book?

Arts & Culture

  • Draw your own ocean picture like one in the book or your very own.

Enrichment Across the Let’s Go Adventure Books Series‍

Observation and Comparison

  • Pet changes: There is a dog in Into the Ocean. Do you know what kind of pets are in the other Let’s Go Adventure Books?

  • Room changes: What’s different between this bedroom and the bedroom in the other books? Posters? Toy chest? Bookcase?

  • Moon phases: In Into the Ocean, the moon in the bedroom window is a crescent, in the other books it is not. What is different about the moon in the two books?

  • Room mobiles:  How is the mobile above the bed for this adventure different than the other books? What creatures and objects do you see are different?

  • Flags: When they reach their destination in the ocean, there is a flag on an oar. Can you see the difference between this flag and the flags in the other books when they reach their destination?

Counting and Early Math

  • Do you think there are more fish in Into the Ocean than there are stars in Up to the Moon?

Science / How-It-Works

  • What help do the characters need with breathing when they are on moon and in the ocean?

Language, Story, and Spot-the-Next-Adventure

  • How do you know at the end of the stories, when they are in bed, that there might be another adventure?

  • Remember some of the make-believe names in the books (squink, bink, danicus aquaticus, zoomfloomery). Can you make up a name for a spaceship or boat using your imagination? 

Social-Emotional Themes

  • Leaving things better than we find them: Did they tidy up anything in the story and leave things better than they found them? What could we do in our neighborhoods, schools, and homes to help, like the characters in the book helped?

  • There are many helpers in the books like the bink and wiggles as well as the whale and haberdasher. How did the characters help when they saw trouble on their way back home?

Arts & Culture

  • Each book has artwork in the home in the hallway by the door and near the mirror. There is an anemone impressionist artist in the ocean book. What kind of art do you see in your house, in your library, or in your school. Do you have a favorite painting there or in these books? Pick an adventure page in any book and draw what you see.

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