Anna Crowley Redding

Last summer, Crowley’s grandfather (AKA “G.G.”) held little Crowley tightly in his arms as they waded into the the surf crashing lightly on the North Carolina coast. I was already pregnant with Quinn and relished watching Crowley enjoy the ocean with his G.G. There were very few people on the beach. About 20 yards away, a woman was fishing.

It was a beautiful scene… until… that woman… caught not ONE but TWO sharks! I am forever scarred by the experience. By the way, NOTE TO SELF: If someone has bait on a hook near your child, take your child out of the water. Got it? Got it. Good.

Even though there are scars, we will push through and learn what we can about our many-sharp-toothed friends anyway.

And speaking of teeth. G.G.’s been collecting shark’s teeth since I can remember. The tiny teeth (and some not so tiny) wash up on the beaches here. If you look closely enough, you’ll find them.

Naturally, our first step in learning about sharks is introducing Crowley to the thril of the hunt.

We filled a casserole dish with sand bought from a craft store and carefully buried a handful of shark’s teeth. Crowley’s job was to find them.

And boy did he! We handed Crowley a loop (you can use a magnifying glass as well) for a super close inspection. The small ones are easy to hide in the sand. But Dad also produced some as long as three inches. This was a opportunity for Crowley to talk about the differences and similarities between them.

He got a big kick out of this, feeling how sharp they were and imagining the size of the animal those teeth once belonged to!

If you don’t have a shark’s-tooth-toting G.G., a quick google search turns up a number of places selling them. You can also do this with tiny seashells and other sea treasure.

Next we head to the “Adventure Room” to make a shark! First we need a little inspiration. And you don’t have to look any further than Atlanta, Georgia… online. The Ocean Voyager exhibit at the Georgia Aquarium is incredible and their web cam provides plenty of LIVE sharks for us to watch in REAL time.

Now we need a shark for our own ocean! Here’s where I found the idea. This blog has easy to follow instructions.

Our last touch was for C to start experimenting with writing. So I wrote the word ‘shark’ on the project in white crayon. C traced it. Fun!

Want to incorporate reading? A patternmemommy.com reader suggested Shark vs. Train by Chris Barton and Tom Litchenheld. We can’t wait to read it!