Whale Craft for Preschoolers: Teach About Whales with These Activities
Whales are the largest living creatures on the planet. They are mammals like us, highly intelligent and they communicate with high decibel sounds that sound like they are singing. Listening to a whale sing can be a very moving experience and may interest preschoolers in learning more about these animals and may foster environmental awareness. In this whale preschool craft we’ll make a plasticine whale so the preschoolers will see how the fish is shaped. The preschoolers can also talk about whales and see some whale videos.
Materials
- Plasticine or Play Clay. You can also make dough, color it with food coloring and use that.
- Photographs of Whales
- Tiny beads or beans
- Match-sticks
- Drawing Paper
- Colors
Directions
- Show the preschoolers photographs of whales.
- Give them the plasticine, play clay or the dough and ask them to fashion a whale from that.
- Roll out a thick lump of plasticine, broad at one end and narrow at the other. The broad end is the head of the whale and the narrow end is the tail. Add plasticine tail fins and flippers.
- Make a deep wide groove in the whale head to make a whale with a wide open mouth.
- Break the match sticks into little bits and insert the bits into the open mouth to denote the whale’s teeth.
- Press in the beans to denote the whale’s eyes.
Whale Activities
Display the whale preschool crafts and talk about the whales.
Where do whales live? - Whales mostly live in the North Atlantic, North Pacific, Arctic and Antarctic Oceans. They usually migrate to warmer waters near Hawaii and the South Pacific in the winter. Whales also live in the Indian Ocean.
Has anyone seen a real whale and if so, where? At sea or at Sea World?
How large are whales? Compare with a truck, for instance. You can also get a rope of over 100 feet length and have the preschoolers unwind that, so they can see how large whales can grow.
What do whales eat? - Some whales have a sieve-like structure called baleen in place of teeth and eat microscopic plankton. Other whales have teeth and eat small and large fish.
How do whales breathe? - As whales are mammals like us, they need to breathe air. They must come up to the ocean surface to breath. They breath through a blowhole on the top of their head. Toothed whales have one blowhole and Baleen whales have two blowholes.
How many sorts of whales are there? - Some of the different types of whales are Blue Whale, Baleen Whale, Sperm Whale, Humpback Whale, Bowhead Whale, Orca or Killer Whale, Narhwahl Whale, Beluga Whale.
What else to do?
Tell a story about a whale. Here’s one from the Marshall Islands about the Whale and the Sandpiper
Draw a whale and color it.
Sing a song about a whale. Here’s the Save The Whales Song
Hear whales singing in the following video
