Summer calls for all things sunny, sandy, and BEACHY! There’s just something magical about a beach theme for toddlers and preschoolers, and there are so many ways to bring this theme to life! From sandy sensory bins to water play and more, there’s no limit of beach theme fun! Whether you’re homeschooling, teaching in a classroom, or simply looking for playful summer activities to keep your little learners engaged, a beach theme is such an easy way to combine hands-on fun with meaningful learning. This beach Preschool theme is packed with Math, Literacy and Fine Motors practice!
Table of Contents – CLICK to jump ahead!
Beach Theme Sensory Bin
One of the easiest ways to add excitement and hands-on learning to your preschool week is with a themed sensory bin. So many of the activities in our Beach Preschool pack incorporate a sensory bin, so it’s best to knock out the preparation early on! Our beach sensory bin is always a hit—it’s simple to put together and offers tons of playful learning opportunities! Here’s how I like to set ours up!
FIRST, gather your materials. I like to use a plastic storage bin with a lid so I can cover and store the bin once it’s prepared. Choose your filler, like the kinetic sand we use in ours. Once you’ve chosen your filler, fill your storage bin as much as you feel comfortable with (knowing each individual child can handle working with different amounts of materials).
NEXT, grab some extra beach themed items like shells, digging tools, colorful cookie cutters and stamps, printables from our beach preschool pack, etc. These items make the perfect backdrop for the printable items in our beach preschool activities! Scatter them throughout your sensory bin filler and watch the theme really come to life!
FINALLY, choose a space that you feel comfortable using the sensory bin with your child. I tuck ours away in our homeschool room with the rest of our Preschool manipulatives, and keep our sensory bin blanket nearby for when it’s time to get to work. The rule with our bins – everything stays on the blanket! This makes clean up SO much easier.
READY, SET, PLAY!!! When your sensory bin is not being used for the printable activities in our Beach Preschool theme, allow children to explore freely! Watch them scoop, pour, dig, and more! I love taking our bin our when I need a little extra quiet time for homeschooling an older child, or honestly if I just need an extra minute to sip my hot coffee!
Beach Preschool Theme Overview
This Beach Preschool theme is sure to give your little learners TONS of fun practice! Children will have 15 center-style activities to choose from – 5 Math, 5 Literacy and 5 Fine Motor centers. In addition, I’ve included book recommendations for 5 beach theme picture books and links to their read aloud videos on YouTube!
To use these printables, you can follow the PRE-MADE lesson plans for a week full of fun! Each of the 5 pre-planned days your students will have 1 read aloud, 1 Math activity, 1 Literacy activity, and 1 Fine Motor activity to work on. This is a great pace for little learners! But if you’d like to spread the activities out or rearrange them according your own child’s needs, simply print our provided Build-Your-Own Plans page and make your own plans!
PS See how we use this theme in our Preschool scope and sequence by grabbing our FREE Preschool Curriculum Map below!
Math Activities
This set of printables has 5 fun Beach Preschool theme activities for practicing early Math skills. Children will practice number formation, number identification, counting, colors, and shapes. Our Preschool activities always include the use of small manipulatives for added fine motor skills practice!
One of my favorite beach preschool theme Math activities is the activity shown above! “Find and feed” centers are such a fun way to take a skill and turn it into a game! To use this activity, children choose sand bucket number cards from their sensory bin and find matching number cards from their sensory bin to “feed” to the big sand bucket.
Want to give your kiddos an extra challenge? Encourage children to identify the number they drew and count up to it on their fingers. Or help them put all of the number cards in order from least to greatest!
Literacy Activities
In addition to the Math centers, this set includes 5 early Beach Preschool Literacy activities! Children will practice skills like letter identification, letter formation, beginning sounds, and handwriting practice with beach theme vocabulary words!
Included in the Literacy printables from our beach preschool theme is the activity shown above. These vocabulary tracing cards are a staple in all of our Preschool themes because they are such a fun way to introduce early vocabulary while also review beginning sounds!
Fine Motor Activities
When working with little learners, strengthening fine motor skills is a must! Our 5 beach preschool theme fine motor activities will have your children working hard and having TONS of fun! They will practice scissor skills, mold using play dough, trace using manipulatives, and so much more!
An activity you’ll find included in this theme is our beachy theme pattern strips! There are so many little images you can use to help build the patterns, or use these fun little gems we found at Hobby Lobby to match the colors and build more patterns!
And… I lesson planned FOR YOU!
This set of activities (and all of the other 45+ sets in our FULL Preschool Curriculum) include a full week of print and go visual lesson plans! It shows you exactly which books and printables to use each day for a 5-day school week, making lesson planning an absolute breeze!
Want to build your own? Or maybe your kiddos are ready for some of the activities but not all of them? That’s great! Use the included Build Your Own lesson plans page! These thematic centers were designed with growing learners ages 2.5 to 5 years old in mind, so this lesson planning page allows you to choose which activities your child is ready for right now!
More June fun!
Ready to learn with your toddlers or Preschoolers ALL MONTH LONG?! You can save TONS when you grab this set of centers in our June Preschool Curriculum! The bundle includes 4 engaging June themes (like Summer, ocean animals, and more!), complete with a week of lesson plans for each! You’ll also get 25 NO PREP Summer themed fine motor skills worksheets and crafts, and 38 NO PREP Math and Literacy worksheets for extended practice!
PS This “monthly” curriculum is one of my favorites because the themes can really be used any time of the school year!!
Let’s hang out!
I hope this post helped you get a better look at our Beach Theme Preschool activities! Got questions? Let me know! I’d love to chat and get to know you better! You can find us below in some of our favorite places to hang out. Can’t wait to chat with you about your Preschooler’s learning journey!
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