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Shark Shenanigans

 Monday 

Before digging into all the amazing sharks in our curriculum, we just learned about what makes a shark a shark! We talked about how they have 2 dorsal fins, the side-to-side swishing tale, the and the gills and pectoral fins. 

We discussed the endangered list: 

-Not enough data

-Least concern

-Near threatened

-Threatened 

-Vulnerable 

-Endangered

-Critically endangered

-Extinct in the wild 

-Extinct

Once we set the scene, we focused on two sharks for Monday, Blue Sharks and Lemon Sharks. Both sharks utilize countershading, a camouflage technique where the shark is white on bottom and the color of the sand, or the water on top. 

We designed our own sharks (some silly, some more scientific) and did some painting. 

After lunch, we headed off to the beach to enjoy the water. We even found some horseshoe crabs!






Tuesday

Today was MONSTER SHARK DAY!!! We learned about the Goblin Shark, the Greenland Shark, and the Cookie Cutter Shark. All these sharks are found in the deep deep ocean. We finished off with the Saw Shark which is more of a shallow shark, but certainly looks monsterous. 

We used recycled materials to make our own sharks based off our design on Monday. Due to the coldness of the day, the group chose to stay at the community house, play baseball, and continue to work on their 3D sharks. 

 


Wednesday

Today we have lots of sharks to pack in. We started the morning with the 3 most deadly sharks: 

-Tiger Sharks 

-Bull Sharks 

-Great White Sharks 

After snack and baseball, we dug back into sharks! We learned about vegetarian sharks as a sharp contrast to the deadliest sharks. Vegetarian sharks are some of the largest sharks in the ocean and can look quite menacing, but are simply filter feeders. The sharks we learned about were: 

-Basking Sharks 

-Megamouth Shark 

-Whale sharks 

After this we split up and made slime that our sharks and sea animals got to play in. 

Once we finished lunch we walked to the beach to enjoyed and unusually high tide! We had so much fun playing one of our favorite class games, Jell-O. 

Thursday 

Quirky Shark Day! Sharks have evolved in some amazing ways. We got to learn about some very strange sharks today: 

-Thresher Shark 

-Hammerhead (we focused on the great hammerhead but there are 9 species)

-The Angel Shark 

-The Epaulette Shark

These sharks utilize some very interesting techniques to catch prey. 

After snack and play, we finished off our shark learning with the Mako and the Silky Shark. We did a habitat art project before heading off to the beach for the day. 


Friday 

We finished off our week learning about the MEGALODON SHARK! We had some serious shark trivia to see who had learned the most throughout the week. After snack we finished our habitat art project. After lunch, face painting, and a camper's birthday celebration (which included cupcakes), we had a water balloon wars!

It was a lovely week at cousins Island learning about all the sharks. Here are some vocab words we learned this week as well as a master list of the sharks we learned about in case you want to quiz your shark expert. 

Shark List: 

1. Blue Shark 

2. Lemon Shark 

3. Goblin Shark 

4. Greenland Shark 

5. Cookie Cutter Shark 

6. Saw Shark 

7. Tiger Shark 

8. Bull Shark 

9. Great White Shark 

10. Basking Shark 

11. Megamouth Shark 

12. Whale Shark 

13. Hammerhead Shark 

14. Angel Shark 

15. Thresher Shark 

16. Epaulette Shark 

17. Silky Shark 

18. Mako Shark (short fin)

19. Megalodon Shark 

Vocab words: 

1. Counter shading - When the shark is a different color on its belly and it's back to camofpage to prey or predators looking down or up at it. 

2. Ambush predators - Animals that camouflage and lie in wait for prey to come by so it can eat it. 

3. Filter Feeders - Sharks that glide through the ocean with their mouth open filtering water through 

4. Dorsal fins, pectoral fins, anal fins

5. Gill Rakers - Litter colander like combs on a filter feeds gills to catch zooplankton and other sea vegetation. 

6. Stereographic - Hammerheads sharks eyes are stereoscopic because they can see 360 degrees

7. Viviparous - Giving birth to live young 

8. Pelagic - Swimming in open waters

9. Brackish waters -mixture of salt and fresh water 

10. Breaching - When a fish jumps out of the water (basking sharks do this to get parasites off)








































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