Last week it was the local Home Ed Geography Fair and this year D and E did a joint project about the oceans. This was inspired by our visit in July to the Scottish Seabird Centre where we got to learn about robots and how they’re being used to clear plastics in the oceans.
I found some fab books for this topic so wanted to share the ones we found useful. As I like to make sure we have a good array of books, for this project I bought a couple of news ones that demonstrated the impact of pollution on the oceans.
I always start a topic by gathering up the books we have and making them readily available for the children to utilise.
General Ocean Books
We have been fortunate to have been gifted a few of the books we used, where this is the case I have marked them with an *.
*A First Book of the Sea by Nicola Davies is just so so beautiful. It’s a series of poems with magical illustrations and it explores all elements of the sea, it’s a lovely book to leaf through together.
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*Life on Earth – Ocean was a great little book for giving the children facts to work with. It’s posed as a question and answer style book with 70 or so flaps to lift. It’s also packed full of bright and bold illustrations which help to make it really engaging.
*Deep in the Ocean is a larger board book and H enjoyed this one. It’s not got as much information in, but it’s visually very appealing and I found it a great introduction into the different layers of the oceans and the different creatures you might spot.
Down, Down, Down in the Sea – we have this one a while and it’s a lovely book with a gentle rhyme as it takes you along the adventure. There are some little flaps to lift as you go along too.
The Sea Book is one we bought Harry for his birthday after I spotted it on offer. It is fantastic and is packed full of information about the different animals you might find in the seas. The illustrations are beautiful too and this is a book we have enjoyed a lot together. It’s packed with information in done in a really accessible way through infograms and bold clear illustrations.
One Day on our Blue Planet – In the Ocean is part of a beautiful series of books. This one follows a bottlenose dolphin’s day and we meet all manner of creatures in the Pacific Ocean. This series of books is one of my favourites and it really makes a wonderful addition to our home library.
Coral Reef
We did a small project looking at the coral reefs, and there were two books that were particularly useful for this. The first was the beautiful *The Coral Kingdom by one of my favourite authors and illustrators – Laura Knowles and Jennie Webber. The Coral Kingdom reads as a poem with the most beautiful illustrations to accompany. I’m always in awe of books like this that hold so much detail within the pages.
The second coral reef book we have enjoyed is *The Brilliant Deep which is all about rebuilding the coral reefs and does offer a message of hope for the world. This is definitely for slightly older children but it’s an utterly fascinating story and one that I suspect not many people know.
Effects of Pollution
We focussed a little about the effects of pollution with our project and there were three key books that we used. *How to Help a Hedgehog and Protect a Polar Bear is a brilliant book which gives lots of practical ways that children can engage with conservation issues. There’s lots of great info and ideas in this book.
What a Waste is a book I bought specifically for this project and is all about rubbish, recycling and ways to protect the planet. There’s a lot in this about plastic and the oceans so it was particularly helpful to us. Kids Fight Plastic is another great book which Daniel, in particular, enjoyed as he was able to see the steps we have put in place at home to cut back our plastic use, and he was able to make the link to that helping to reduce waste. Finally, Somebody Swallowed Stanley is all about a plastic bag… and its journey in the ocean. Really helps to bring the plastic issue to life for small children.
Are there other books you can recommend for us? I found these were a great mix for all three of my children (ages 3, 5 and 6) and offered ways for me to extend their learning too.
