Making Our Way Through a Kelp Forest

Today was a day of exploration as we swam through a Kelp Forest and made our very own Kelp Trees. We talked about how here in Clark, we have forests made of various types of trees and how the Ocean has it's very own style of vegetation and "trees". We were fascinated when we used our i-pad to explore photographs of divers in these tall and dark kelp forests. We also discussed how Kelp is a type of Sea Weed.  We talked about how it might feel in our hands and discussed it's colors and shapes. We then looked at one more example of this "slimy" and "wet" sea weed in our Ocean book with drawings and illustrations. It didn't look as dark in these pictures which we seemed to like more. After deep study of these plants, we got the opportunity to draw our own kelp forests. After they were all drawn, we turned them into trees and hung them about the classroom to give the feeling of swimming through a kelp forest.


According to  Colorado Early Learning And Development Guidelines, we were illustrating:

• ​Fine Motor: Hold small objects in one hand and sometimes use both hands together to manipulate objects.
• Perceptual Development: Use the information received from the senses to change the way they interact with the environment.
• ​Recognition of Ability: Experiment with different ways of making things happen.

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