Well, I was going to give you a link to the two Reading Rainbow DVDs we watched this week all about the sea life, but Amazon has no clue what I’m talking about, and youtube just gave me a bunch of strange links.
But, if your library happens to have these: Seashore Surprises, and Dive to the Coral Reef; get them.
We watched these one day while Jeff was laying there in misery with his horrible sun burn, and then the kids, Mom, and I headed off to the beach giving Jeff some much needed “no kids trying to touch my sun burn time.” If the kids had their way that’s how they’d watch TV……..
We wandered up and down the sea shore to find some of the things we saw in the video and of course to find SHELLS!
One thing we learned after watching the videos and reading our shell guide that the kelp that comes ashore is a good way to find sea shells.
And as you can see there was a lot of kelp to look through. A LOT. As we were leaving we saw construction vehicles moving it out of the way. Previously there had been no real kelp to speak of. After a quick google search on my part I discovered we were in PRIME kelp season. Which also seemed to coincide with when they’re at their busiest (May to August).
So, there was a lot of picking through kelp to find shells (which will become a whole series of Science Sunday posts as we do some experiments with them), and watching the surf to find the coquinas we had just learned about thanks to Reading Rainbow.
I wanted to capture a video of them, but figured someone already had at some point, and I was right, so this is a cool video to show your kids about life as a coquina shell.
I never thought to look in kelp for seashells. Makes sense, though.
I love Reading Rainbow!
I love Reading Rainbow too!
I also love beach science! Oh you are really making me anxious for the summer – that means July in this neck of the woods!
Does it get better than beach science? Looks super fun!
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Poor Jeff!
I am jealous of your beach outing! Lars is so totally not a beach person. We've been together for 8 years and on the beach once. Looking forward to your shell science!
Those Reading Rainbow segments are on the Reading Rainbow “Ocean Life” DVD we own. Is that what you watched? I wish we lived closer to an ocean. My daughter would love to search for shells.
Sorry that Jeff had such a sunburn. That stinks. Thanks for the to about the kelp. It makessense, but I would have never thought of it. 🙂
Wish we would get some beach weather, remember this time last year we were all over the beach, lakes and rivers by now. My nature studies are still on the back burner.
I love Reading Rainbow. It used to be on our PBS station when C was younger and he watched it a lot. It's always fun to look for things on the beach!
My girls SO want to go to the beach. It's quite a drive for us, but I think we need to make a trip this summer. We do have lakes near us, but it's not quite the same.
I agree that Reading Rainbow is great.
And yes, poor Jeff!
Owie on the sunburn! He's feeling better? LOVE Beach Science! We try to explore the rocky Atlantic coast when we visit my family…and the lakes around where we live. (The ocean seems more interesting though! LOL)
Jessy
I'm so glad you linked this post up to the party. I loved the video of the coquina. They are beautiful to watch when the are in masses.
Little Wonders' Days