O-o Octopus was a huge hit at our house. Living in Florida means we have access to lots and lots of water. So having the Octopus and Water units back to back was tons of fun for us.

My son expressed an interest in learning more about octopus but also all sea life! I set up our K table with lots of free posters from our local nature center about various local sea life and set out several books that contained interesting and lovely illustrations. He spent a lot of time drawing, tracing and copying pictures out of these books while my older boys did their Exploring Countries and Cultures work.  I also picked up a pack of diffusing paper in sea life shapes, we used water color on these and made beautiful fish, seahorse, and turtle friends to hang up around the house.

Lastly, I set out a tray with some of our favorite nature finds from the shoreline for him to look at up close with a magnifying glass.

One of our friends celebrated his birthday on the beach that week and of course my son spent quite a bit of time hunting for an octopus whenever he wasnt jumping into the sea. The hostess provided nets for all the children and they had a blast!

We found a variety of crabs, small fish and bristle worms. Not a an octopus in sight but we still enjoyed the hunt.

We loved studying the Mimic Octopus our first time around and when I announced it was time for the Octopus week my elder boys ran in and begged to watch this youtube video and this one.

There are TONS and TONS of Octopus crafts on pinterest. My two eldest made octopus sock friends when they were in K. Sewing buttons on to make the suction cups for the tentacles. Of course number 3 wanted to be totally and completely different, thank you very much. He does not like following instructions to make a craft. He wants to forge his own path and make it his own. So he made a hat out of construction paper and attached tentacles with cheerio suction cups glued on. The hat didn’t last long but boy did he have a blast making something of his own!

Here are a few of our favorite Ocean themed books from this week:

How to Hide an Octopus by Ruth Heller
An Octopus is Amazing by Patricia Lauber
What lives in a Shell by Katherine Weidner
The Snail and the Whale by Julia Donaldson
Mister Seahorse by Eric Carle
Underwater Alphabet by Jerry Pallota
Giant Squid by Mary Cerullo
The Octopus Scientists by Sy Montgomery
Down, Down, Down by Steve Jenkins
Little Tim and the Brave Sea Captain by Edward Ardizzone
Burt Dow, Deep Water Man by Robert McCloskey
Sunken Treasure by Gail Gibbons

We finished gathering all of our nature finds for our summer nature pal exchange. I really can not recommend this program enough!

Our cocoplums finally ripened and we had a lovely evening picking most of them.

And it was FINALLY his turn to get a library card. Oh, how proud and excited he was that day!

Things are slowly easing into a good rhythm for our family as we juggle ECC, MFWK, AYOPS, therapy and SCM. Soon we will be adding CC to the mix. Its hard work but so worth it to meet all these different needs!