Explore the shore - beach activities series

A series of beach activities for primary children. Scotland has the best beaches in the world. Let’s get out there! This guide introduces parents, teachers and group leaders to some basic marine biology and provides step-by-step instructions for a range of beach based activities. This should excite leaders, encouraging them to take children to the beach where they can nurture a love of the outdoors and a curiosity about wildlife.

The activities

Six activities are described. Some get children running around while others involve looking at wildlife in more detail. Ideally, they should be carried out on a sandy shore with some rocky areas; providing both a safe place to run around and a range of wildlife. Some of the activities could be carried out indoors if the weather is poor.

You need not run all the activities at once; they work independently so you can pick those that suit your trip. The instructions are for groups of about 20 children but can easily be modified for smaller groups. The activity sheets contain background information for group leaders and suggestions for follow-up work.

Activity	Description	Age range	Duration	Location	Preparation (group leader)
Who’s hungry?	An experiment to find out what edible periwinkles like to eat.	All primary	25 minutes  (But runs for several hours.)	Any beach  or indoors	Need to collect winkles 1-2 days prior to the activity.
Treasure hunt	Finding items on the beach.	All primary	45 minutes	Any beach	Could collect some items beforehand.
Marram madness	A physical activity.	All primary	40 minutes	A beach with sand dunes	None essential.
Creature cards	Charades or sand sculptures using prompt cards.	All primary	45 minutes	Charades – anywhere Sand sculptures – a sandy beach	Print cards.
ID at the Beach	Using an identification key to name beach items.	Upper Primary	40 minutes	Any beach  or indoors	Need to collect items.
Beachy food chains	Tide in ~ tide out.   A physical activity. Making chains. An acting game.	All primary Upper Primary	30 minutes 25 minutes	Anywhere	Print labels.

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