Hello my Omschooligans! Teacher Omi lives in Michigan, which among other wonderful things, is home to the most lighthouses of any state! This is great for me because I love lighthouses and the lovely Michigan lakes they protect! So today in the Omschool, we're going to explore all things lighthouses!
⚓ Recycled Materials Lighthouse Craft
1. Materials You Need:
- An upside-down plastic cup
- Paper towel tubes
- Aluminum foil
- Acrylic paint
- Craft glue
- Scissors
- A battery-powered LED tealight
2. Instructions:
- Paint the Tower: Decorate your paper towel tube with stripes using acrylic paint.
- Prepare the Lantern: Carefully cut small window shapes into the plastic cup.
- Create the Beacon: Crumple small pieces of aluminum foil to act as a reflector inside the top.
- Assembly: Glue the cup securely onto the top of the painted tower.
- Add the Light: Place your LED tealight underneath the cup to make your lighthouse shine!
Click below for a free printable "recipe card" for this fun, eco-friendly craft for all ages!
Maritime & Lighthouse Resources
Celebrate National Lighthouse Day (August 7th) with these free printable resources for lesson plans, crafts, and activities! Side stepping the less savory aspects of pirate lore, I've included navigation, maritime and marine lesson plans and printable boats and ships.
Boat-Links : Subtitled "The Mother of All Maritime Links," this comprehensive site offers hundreds of free resources covering nautical science, navigation, sailing history, merchant marine information, U.S. Navy history, maritime museums, and more.Celestial Navigation : Learn how sailors of the past navigated by the stars using ancient tools. Make your own sextant, astrolabe, quadrant, cross-staff, kamal (latitude hook) and nocturnal. Learn how they were indispensable in medieval navigation.Navigator: This site provides free printable maritime activities and instructions for making your own vintage navigational instruments.
US Lighthouse Society : Access a collection of lighthouse-themed lesson plans, crafts, coloring pages, and educational worksheets. Note: A free user account is required to access these materials.Boats, Ships and Subs : Find dozens of links for printable paper boat models, including historical sailing vessels like clipper ships, Roman warships, Viking longboats, pirate ships, and famous models like the Titanic and the Kon-Tiki.Disney Experience : Download nautical-themed toys and crafts from favorite movies, including a Spanish galleon, Captain Nemo's Nautilus, Jack Sparrow's compass, and a Mark Twain riverboat.The Toymaker : Featuring a free printable puppet theater where children can act out adventures with Florimel the Magnificent, a brave rabbit sailor who navigates the high seas in a boat that looks very like Sir Francis Drake's "Golden Hind."
Educational Lesson Plans & Activity Guides
United States Lighthouse Society (USLHS) : This is one of the best sources for comprehensive educational materials. They offer downloadable "Learning Kits," teaching guides for books like The Little Red Lighthouse and Keep the Lights Burning, Abbie, and various activity sheets including mazes, word searches, and "draw a lighthouse" exercises.Activities for Fun & Learning : A specific PDF guide from the USLHS that includes instructions for making "paper cup lighthouses," drawing exercises, and ideas for using lighthouses to teach topics like history, safety, and weather.Study.com Lighthouse Lesson Plan : This lesson plan is designed for elementary students and covers the purpose, history, and function of lighthouses, including hands-on activities like molding lighthouses out of modeling clay.Teachers Pay Teachers (Free Section) : You can find various free, educator-created resources here, such as creative writing prompts, literacy activities based on The Lighthouse Keeper’s Lunch series, and storytelling games.Printable & 3D Models
Edupics: Here's a huge library of free printable coloring pages of boats and lighthouses. You'll find high-quality historical images of dozens of American lighthouses.
These can be printed out to create a visual library or used as reference material for students to build their own models based on real-world architecture. - DIY Paper Models: You can create your own lighthouse models using common household items. The USLHS guide mentioned above recommends using paper cups, aluminum foil for the beacon, and construction paper templates to create lighthouses that children can decorate and customize.
Teacher Omi's Story Corner
As my Omschooligans know, no Teacher Omi lesson plans are complete without a bibliography of kids' books about our topic of the day. Here is a bibliography of children’s literature about lighthouses, featuring a mix of classics and educational stories:
The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge by Hildegarde H. Swift and Lynd Ward: A classic tale about a small lighthouse on the Hudson River that learns its own importance even in the shadow of a massive bridge.Keep the Lights Burning, Abbie by Peter and Connie Roop: Based on a true story, this book follows young Abbie Burgess, who bravely kept the lighthouse lamps burning during a fierce storm in 1856 while her father was away.The Lighthouse Keeper’s Lunch by Ronda and David Armitage: A humorous and popular story about Mr. Grinling, a lighthouse keeper, and the creative lengths he goes to protect his lunch from hungry seagulls.Ghost Canoe by Will Hobbs: A suspenseful story for older elementary/middle school readers, set near the Cape Flattery Lighthouse, involving shipwrecks and mystery.All About Nubble Light by Jeremy D’Entremont: A nonfiction book that provides an engaging look at the history and operation of the famous Nubble Lighthouse in Maine.
Beach Day Party Planner
⚓ Omschooligan's Beach Day Snacks
Welcome, Omschooligans! What’s a beach day without some themed treats? These "make your own" snacks are perfect for little hands to assemble.
🍩 Life Preserver Donuts
A simple, classic snack to keep our sailors safe.
Ingredients: Plain mini powdered donuts, red fruit leather or strawberry fruit tape, cream cheese or white icing.
Instructions:
Cut the red fruit leather into thin, uniform strips.
Wrap four strips around the donut at equal intervals to create the "red stripes" of a life preserver.
Use a tiny dab of cream cheese to secure the ends of the fruit strips.
🗼 Lighthouse Fruit Towers
A healthy beacon for your beach day feast!
Ingredients: Strawberries (for the top), any combo of banana slices, green or purple grapes, watermelon, honeydew and cantaloupe chunks for tower. Blue yogurt or frosting, wooden skewers (or assemble without skewers for younger children).
Instructions:
Spread a little blue yogurt on your plate to act as the "waves."
Alternate stacking banana slices and green grapes to build your lighthouse tower.
Carefully place a whole strawberry on top to act as the red lantern room.
⛵ Sailboat Apple Slices
Crispy, crunchy boats ready to catch the breeze.
Ingredients: Apple wedges, cheese slices (cheddar or Swiss work great), toothpicks.
Instructions:
Cut your cheese slices into triangles to serve as sails.
Push a toothpick through the top and bottom of the cheese triangle.
Insert the toothpick into the top of an apple wedge "hull." Your boat is ready to set sail!
🦀 Crabby Croissants
A savory, sand-tastic treat to add a "pinch" of fun to your snack menu!
Ingredients: Mini croissants, cream cheese, cheese or cumbers slices, olives or cherry tomatoes, lunchmeat and lettuces leaves.
Instructions:
Slice the mini croissants open and spread with cream cheese.
Add a lunchmeat slice if desired.
Place two cherry tomatoes or olives on toothpicks for for eyes
Cut cheese or cucumber slices to look like crab’s "claws" and add to sides.
Serve on a lettuce leaf sea!
Ants on a boat!
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