Dive in with KS1

By using one song, Down there under the sea, you can develop exciting cross-curricular activities related to the sea world

6-Week activity Plan by Sue Nicholls.

SCIENCE

• Conduct research into aspects of sea life using reference books and appropriate websites.
• Encourage the children to classify their findings as fish, mammals or plants.
• Discover which crab uses a discarded shell as its home.
• Experiment on seaweed to discover if the folklore about predicting the weather is true.

DANCE

• Use an accessible piece of music, such as Aquarium by Saint-Saëns, to generate ideas for a sea dance eg. practise sideways scuttling limb movements for crabs, or explore strong, dramatic whole-body actions that turn and thrash about for scary sharks. 
• Why not use your own percussion accompaniment to create a really grand sea-ballet performance?

MUSIC

• Use the following rhythmic chant template to elicit individual responses. Encourage the children to accompany each response by clapping the syllables, reinforcing the ‘Q and A’ structure. Begin each answer with ‘It’s a/an…’ to support the momentum of the rhythm – eg:

Leader: What’s in the ocean?

Child [1]: It’s an octopus.

Leader: What’s in the ocean?

Child [2]: It’s an eel.

Leader: What’s in the ocean?

Child [3]: It’s a jellyfish.

Leader: What’s in the ocean?

Child [4]: It’s a shark.

• In pairs, the children can create their own graphic scores reflecting the structure above using simple tables in Microsoft Word.

ENGLISH: DRAMA & SPEAKING AND LISTENING

• Talk with the children about their seaside experiences and gently steer the discussion to the creatures and plants that live in the sea. 
• Many children will be familiar with Disney’s The Little Mermaid and this might be the moment to show some footage to stimulate imaginative responses and develop oracy skills. The famous song from that film, 'Under the sea', is available in the Song Bank, and although it’s recommended for Year 3 upwards, when shown in the context of the film it provides a real performance piece guaranteed to delight KS1 pupils.
• Convert the home corner to an ‘under-the-sea’ location. Use blue and green shimmer papers to line the walls, cover the floor area with yellow fabric or a sheet and decorate with shells, pebbles and images of sea creatures. Invite the children to bring any appropriate items from home, such as buckets and spades, snorkel masks or flippers, and create an impressive seaweed entrance by attaching curvy strips of green paper to the top of the doorway, to wave and flow in an inviting subaquatic fashion!

ENGLISH: WRITING AND ICT

• Discuss and collect exciting adjectives for a small group of sea-related nouns, such as: pebbles, shells, coral, waves, rocks, fish, etc. Then encourage the children to arrange the lines as they wish, to construct prose poems – eg: 

Gleaming pebbles

Spiky coral

Darting fish

Delicate shells

Sharp rocks

All hidden under the sea …

• Invite the children to type their poems into Microsoft Word and import suitable sea-coloured backgrounds.

ART AND DESIGN

• Research the shapes and colours of exotic fish. Tie-dye pieces of fabric in brilliant blues and greens or use fabric paints in rich jewel tones. Cut out double fish shapes, sew together using simple stitches, stuff with padding and then embellish with sequins, buttons, ribbons and sparkly threads. Suspend the fish in front of a display board dedicated to an underwater sea collage.
• By frequently revising the original song during this unit of work, you can encourage the children to try out their ideas for alternative second lines, resulting in a ‘wave’ of new verses!
• Perform your song to the school and invite other classes to see the results of your topic work.

PERFORMANCE IDEAS

• Teach two children to play the introduction on xylophones or glockenspiels, but ensure that each player has two mallets. The little melodic snippet is really easy to learn by listening to the recording and only requires the player to work down the scale (adjacent notes) from the note ‘G’ to low ‘C’: G F E D C. (If your class can sing confidently without the backing track, you could add in this little introductory phrase before every verse.)
• Divide the class into one largish group, who will sing everything except line two, and several pairs of small solo groups to sing the individual lines that change in each verse: lots of fish, whales and sharks, etc.
• Add some rudimentary dressing-up items, like swimming costumes, snorkels and flippers, swimming rings and draped towels, for a dramatic (or comic) effect.
• Encourage the larger group to invent some movement to accompany its singing, such as swimming actions or undulating ‘wave’ arms, and end with gestures that point downward for ‘down there under the sea!’
• Add some percussion sounds – rain tubes, ocean drums or shakers – to enhance the performance.

Sue Nicholls has published many books for generalist teachers with A&C Black and contributed several songs to other song collections. She works as a freelance music education consultant, providing nationwide INSET and training.

Song Bank

Visit the Song Bank online to find this song and all of its accompanying materials. You'll also find a wide range of accessible and varied material that supports this marine theme, offering many opportunities to sing you way through the curriculum! Why not listen to the following songs as well?

• A sailor went to sea, sea, sea
• Going over the sea (This way, that way)
• I do like to be beside the seaside
• The mermaid
• Roll the chariot along
• Row, row, row your boat
• Song of the fish
• Under the sea

Download an example of a graphic score from the Bonus online content area.