Under the Sea
The Rainbow Fish

This term the topic has been loosely based on the title Under the Sea. This has covered all aspects of the Foundation Stage Curriculum One of our favourite authors Julia Donaldson has written three great books on this subject – Tiddler, Snail on a Whale and Sharing a Shell. Although we have enjoyed all the activities based on these stories we chose the story of The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister to be one of our displays. A visiting child, hearing the book being read, studied the display, turned to an adult and exclaimed ‘That tells the story!’

As we cook every week, but this year we are a fish free department, we made rainbow fish shaped pizzas and one of us made a stingray shaped pizza!

‘Fish’ Pizza Recipe

Pizza base cut into a fish shape.
Tomato based pizza topping
Red, green, yellow, orange peppers
Mozzarella cheese grated
Half an olive
Method
Cover the fish shaped pizza base with tomato topping.
Cut the peppers into slices.
Place over the base to resemble scales.
Place half olive as an eye.
Cover with grated cheese.
Bake at 150C until peppers cooked and cheese melted.
Enjoy.

As the term has progressed the topic has been expanded to include mermaids and pirates.
Treasure maps were drawn (X marks the spot) and aged with cold tea and pirate stories written to accompany them. Shiny fabric was used to dress up as mermaids or mermen. The making of a Treasure Chest led to long discussions as to what is classed as treasure!
Chocolate, my Lego, glitter and of course golden money was on the list.

Every learning area in the room has come under the influence of ‘under the sea’ Treasure sequins added to playdough appeared in the malleable area, we all helped to make a fishing game for the maths area, on the investigation table we made a fish tank and filled it with items we could look at with our magnifying glasses, the water tray acquired rocks, plastic fish and mermaids. When it contained damp sand, the sand tray had blue plastic sheets added so we could make ponds, rivers and lakes. Now that the tray contains fine dry silver sand, we keep finding treasure, hidden deep inside. The book area has a lovely supply of fact and fiction books exploring our theme as well as puppets and jigsaws. The creative area has been very well used for ‘making’ everything we need. In the graphics area we have tracing paper to use with the fish pictures, paper and cold tea to make maps and, of course, we have had to write notices for the roleplay area. AND as for the roleplay area – it is an Octopus's Garden! What else could it be!

Treasure Island