Fun Sea Turtle Activities for Kids, Lesson Plans, and Craft Free File
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Are you looking for some fun sea turtle activities? In this post, we’ll embark on an oceanic adventure inspired by the amazing book One Tiny Turtle by Nicola Davies. This book is a fantastic way to learn about the amazing creatures that are sea turtles.
Your students will love learning all about the species of sea turtles. I will share information about World Turtle Day, reading comprehension activities, and easy turtle crafts you can use in your own classroom.
So, grab your snorkel (corny) and get ready to dive in (equally corny) as we learn more about sea turtles. Let’s inspire the next generation of ocean enthusiasts and nurture a love for these magnificent creatures that call the sea their home.
What is World Turtle Day?
World Sea Turtle Day is an annual observance that aims to raise awareness about the conservation and protection of turtles and their habitats worldwide. It is celebrated on May 23rd each year and was founded by the American Tortoise Rescue (ATR) in 2000.
The day serves as an opportunity to educate people about turtles’ importance in various ecosystems, their role in maintaining biodiversity, and the threats they face, such as habitat destruction, pollution, illegal trade, and climate change. It also encourages individuals and organizations to take action to help conserve turtle species and their habitats.
Activities on World Turtle Day often include educational programs, community events, beach clean-ups, fundraising initiatives for sea turtle conservancy projects, and advocacy campaigns to promote turtle-friendly practices for this endangered species.
Overall, World Turtle Day reminds us of the need to protect these ancient and fascinating creatures and promote their conservation for future generations.
Sea Turtle Read Aloud Lesson Ideas
We love books by Nicola Davies, and One Tiny Turtle does not disappoint! This informational book beautifully shares the life cycle of sea turtles. We decided to include it in our close reading lessons.
These sea turtle activities and ideas feature the book One Tiny Turtle by Nicola Davies. (affiliate link)
One Tiny Turtle Book Summary
One Tiny Turtle by Nicola Davies is a children’s book that follows the journey of a loggerhead sea turtle from hatching to adulthood. Through vibrant illustrations and engaging storytelling, readers learn about the challenges the turtle faces in the ocean, its search for food, and its eventual return to its birthplace to lay eggs. The book educates about the life cycle of sea turtles and emphasizes the importance of conservation efforts to protect these endangered creatures and their habitats.
We love that this book has an informational and narrative text format!
Sea Turtle Interactive Read Aloud
What is an Interactive Read Aloud?
In a kindergarten classroom, an interactive read-aloud is a dynamic and engaging activity where the teacher reads a carefully selected book aloud to the class while students actively participate in comprehension activities.
During the read-aloud, the teacher decodes the text, models fluent reading, and pauses to ask questions or make comments that promote understanding. Meanwhile, the students are encouraged to listen attentively, ask questions, make predictions, and connect the story to their own experiences.
This interactive approach fosters a love for reading and develops crucial comprehension skills in young learners. Students deepen their understanding of vocabulary, story structure, character development, and themes by actively engaging with the text and discussing its meaning.
Interactive read-alouds provide valuable opportunities for students to practice listening, critical thinking, and language skills in a supportive and enjoyable classroom environment.
Schema about Turtles
Examining our schema is a reading comprehension strategy where readers connect their prior knowledge and experiences to their reading text. By activating existing schema, readers can better understand and make sense of new information, enhancing comprehension and critical thinking skills while fostering deeper engagement with the text.
These teaching slides help to guide the conversations that take place between students. After the students had time to discuss what they already knew about a subject, we continued to read the text. Students also respond in writing.
The Life Cycle of a Turtle
By reading the book, students also learn the life cycle of sea turtles!
There is also a printable version of the turtle life cycle cards that you can use in a pocket chart.
Students complete this simple turtle life cycle craft.
This sea turtle life cycle craft is a great way for students to practice their oral language skills while using transition words.
Turtle Nonfiction Writing Activity
After spending a few days with the book, students are ready to write more about what they learning about sea turtles!
This sea turtle anchor chart provides a helpful structure for students.
Sea Turtle Sentence Study
We always include a text-related sentence activity in our week-long lessons. This moveable PowerPoint makes it a bit easier.
Simple Sea Turtle Craft
This adorable sea turtle-directed drawing is also part of our lessons for the week. Students draw a sea turtle and then use watercolors for the turtle’s shell. You can see that we added the student sentence study to the bottom of the activity. When you back the drawing on black construction paper, it gives it a framed appearance and makes a beautiful bulletin board display!
You can find all of the activities above by clicking:
Sea Turtle Videos
Here are a few informational videos you may wish to include in your turtle-themed week!
This first video takes students on a field trip to the Sea Turtle Hospital in Florida. Sea turtles with an illness or injury are placed in the great hands of the care teams there. Some turtles will return to their natural habitats. Other sea turtles will not survive in the wild, so they are adapted to aquariums.
This video is filled with facts about sea turtles. Facts like:
- There are seven different species of sea turtles. All of these species are classified as endangered.
- An adult sea turtle can travel at speeds of 22 miles per hour.
- Female sea turtles lay an average of 110 eggs at one time.
- The temperature of the sea turtle egg nest determines whether the turtle will be male or female.
Turtle Decodable Reader
Students love interactive decodable books. Each book asks students to match the picture to the words!
You can find these decodable books in this resource:
Inferring with Ocean Animals
These riddles are so much fun to do each morning. As students came into the room, I read the poem to them. Each riddle offers clues about different ocean creatures. Students listened to the clues and wrote their guesses.
Then, during the morning meeting, we would reveal the answer!
Read more about the riddle of the day by clicking:
Ocean Poem
Each morning, we like to start our day with a poem. This ocean poem was one of my students’ absolute FAVORITES!
Ocean Themed ABC and Sight Word Game
This ocean animal theme game has letters and sight words already printed on the cards, but the editable word cards make it easy to customize this activity for independent work.
These students are playing with both letter cards and their spelling words.
You can read more about this fun game by reading:
You can find this ocean themed board game by clicking:
Ocean CVC Games
This card game is an engaging addition to student centers. Students pull the cards out of the bag and read the words. They have to watch out for the special words! (The special cards make them squeal with excitement!)
I have quite a few of these card games, so once students know how to play them, you can just swap out the theme and you don’t need to reteach the activity again and again!
Ocean Themed Math and Literacy Centers
Here are a few fun math and literacy center activities for your week! The goal is for students to move the adorable turtle toward the sea turtle eggs.
Look at these cute sea turtles on the addition and subtraction cards.
Stamping Center
This is always a fun fine motor skills activity for younger students!
Sea Turtle Habitat
The Coral Reefs in my Interactive Science Nonfiction Books would work well with your ocean theme!
Check out the bundle of 30 different interactive books, here:
Color by Code Editable Worksheets
These color by code worksheets make a great review activity or morning work task!
Classroom teachers love these because you can add your own words or letters to the worksheet!
Ocean Lesson Plan Template
You can download this free lesson plan template and edit it to make it your own! On the PDF version, each resource is linked so you can find it quickly. There is also a PowerPoint version!
Click on the image or HERE to download it from my Google Drive!
Do you want to see more lesson plans like this?
Hopefully, you found a few hands-on activities and lesson ideas you can try for your insect week. As I said, this sweet book is a great story that I’m sure your students will love.
Ocean Animal Free File!
You can grab this free ocean animal free math activity by adding your email to the box below!
More Fun Blog Posts for Your Classroom!
Here are a few other fun blog posts you may be interested in:
- 25 Zoo Theme Activities Kindergarten Lesson Plans & Freebie
- 19 Ocean Videos for Kids that are Teacher Approved
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Deedee Wills
My teaching career allowed me to experience teaching in different classroom environments and grades. My heart belongs to early childhood education. My job is to make teaching FUN, ENGAGING, and EASIER. Welcome!
Hi, I'm DeedeE.
My teaching career allowed me to experience teaching in different classroom environments and grades. My heart belongs to early childhood education. My job is to make teaching FUN, ENGAGING, and EASIER. Welcome!
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