Hi! Future Ticia 2023 here, I’m updating this sea shell sort science lesson, and adding in a few more resources. Future Ticia 2025 is now also collapsing another post into this. It was so much fun, and it’s a great lesson, but… ten years ago, Ticia didn’t necessarily do the best job explaining things. So, let’s dive into seashell sorting, a great science lesson after a beach vacation, OR if you’re studying swimming creatures in your science.
And one random more side-note, this lesson almost feels like the tongue twister: She sells seashells by the seashore.
(there are affiliate links in here)
Now, back to 2012 Ticia, I’ll pop in again some other times.
I was hoping to have some amazing pictures this week of the triops that had hatched……. However, we’re into the start of the time when they MIGHT hatch, provided I never got the water too hot. This might not have been the ideal experiment for us to try.
Instead, I’ll start telling you about the next lesson we’re learning: SHELLS!
Sea Shell Sort Supplies
sea shells, felt sheets (this helps kids visually see how they are organizing their shells), magnifying glass (Future Ticia says, this is so much cooler than those available when my kids were little), shell books
After reading what animals live in shells from our swimming creatures textbook and how there are many types, we first read about bivalves, so today’s lesson is on bivalves.
Sea Shell Sort set-up and goal
Setup: Each kid had a pile of shells and a few non-shell items, and a piece of felt.
Goal: To separate out the bivalve shells from the non-bivalve shells and to remove the non-shell items from the grouping.
Pretty simple, but fun, right?
Next, we sorted through the bivalves and looked for ones that were broken or had small holes in them.
Question: How did this happen? What is the difference between a broken shell and a shell that has a hole in it?
- A shell with a small hole drilled in it- that was eaten by a sea snail that drilled the hole and sucked out the mussel in the shell.
- Broken shell- it was broken by a land animal, most likely. Sea otters will lie on their backs and crush clams with rocks. Seagulls will drop clams onto rocky shores to shatter the shells to eat the clam inside.
Afterward, I gave them some time to freely explore the shells and look at them some more.
They were given some ocean life flashcards, a book about sea shells with pictures of them to identify them, and a magnifying glass (sadly the store I got mine from seems to of discontinued it, but I found a similar one I’ve linked to).
Oh, and just so I have a chance of knowing who is who later on, Superman is wearing the Batman lego shirt and has the blue felt. I’m basing this mainly on the blue felt because blue is his favorite color.
What I like about this science lesson
On the surface, this is a nice, simple lesson. You get to play with seashells and sort them into different categories.
But there is another level. Lessons like this allow your children to use critical thinking skills. First, they have to observe the shells they’re given and notice that some of the items aren’t shells. Everything was found on the beach, but not all of it is a shell. Then they use what they’ve learned from their science lessons to see different kinds of shells.
Then they can look and see how different shells have been affected by the ocean.
It also gives them a chance to work on their vocabulary as they use words to describe how shells feel and what they look like.
So much great science is going on here with my kids.
Another way to sort seashells
This activity comes from my Swimming Creatures pinterest board. Over at the Crafty Classroom she put together a great sea shells classification printable identifying them to the best of her ability. I tried to look for some others to add to my collection, but didn’t find any. Does anybody know of any other sea shells classification printables?
We went through our seashells and slowly sorted them into the different types. We ran into several that didn’t quite fit the pictures we had, so at that point, it got into our best guess.
This is a great way to talk about classification and the minor differences you can find in things.
What makes this one a whelk and this one a conch shell?
Of course, eventually it turned into a boys versus girls thing. That didn’t go over quite so well because both boys would pick the same type of sea shell and say, “This is ____________ (fill in the blank of a child’s name they know) and he’s part of the boy group. There are more boys than girls.”
Yeah, and that would be when I ended that activity.
However, the concept is still sound, and they are still talking about it a few weeks later, so I guess overall it was a win for the learning sea shells activity.
Science from other people
I used to host a science linkie where people shared what they had done for science that week, and then I went back and shared ideas. It looks like this week the blogs are still here (some weeks that is not true).
- Relentlessly Fun, Deceptively Educational made a fun yarn bird’s nest.
- Child’s Play Music has an interesting idea for making music with water and common household items and explains some of the science behind it.
- Learning Hypothesis had a fun experiment involving forces, pushing/pulling with balls.
Does anyone have any other fun ideas about shells? I have a few more things we’re going to be doing and I’m looking forward to more explorations.
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