Become a Merfolkologist!
Play and Learn With Activities for Little Mermaids, Mermen and All Merfolk!
Held over 5 x weekly hands-on and play-based sessions
Max. 5 children per group for personalised interaction
Join a live session from anywhere in the world
In this interactive Merfolkology course we use play-based learning. Come and imagine, create, engineer, experiment and discover all the secrets of little mermaids, mermen and other creatures of the deep with STEM, maths and literacy activities.
In this small group we become Merfolkologists, taking a “deep dive” into the ocean and exploring beaches and shorelines through the eyes of mythological mermaids, mermen and other merfolk. Along the way, our little mermaid activities will introduce us to diverse ocean creatures such as seahorses and narwhals. We will even discover some amazing underwater worlds of sea caves, whale cities, kelp forests and perhaps even find some buried treasures!
Our workshop each week begins with a merfolk story. However, in this class, we will not be meeting commercialised Disney mermaids! Our stories will include merfolk from many different artistic sources and children’s literature and mermaid books. Our little mermaids all have diverse skin colours, gender identities, family types, neurotypes, and body shapes. During our interactive storytelling, children will have opportunities to contribute their own ideas and follow their own interests. Children will develop, practice and explore new vocabulary, mathematical concepts, and scientific thinking and problem-solving.
Inspired by our stories and discussions, we will then begin our mermaid activities with hands-on play. Our explorations will include, for example, open-ended art, play, engineering and experiments. At the end of our five weeks together, children will have created their own merfolk mythology and objects to keep their imaginations (and their learning!) alive.
I deliver this Merfolkology Course via the Outschool platform in order to provide families with added trust and safety, including:
Secure Payment | Teacher Background Check and Qualification Verified | Happiness Money-Back Guarantee*
What other parents say about the mermaid activities in this play-based course:
I’ve never seen Ryder enjoy learning so much. We started homeschooling just six months ago due to years of bullying and the school not understanding his learning needs. I love how much…science he is learning in the little mermaids class…each week. But mostly I can’t tell you what it means to me to see him feel so engaged and interested. He truly feels heard and valued. You are an exceptional teacher and human being. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for bringing him out of his shell and helping him find his voice again.
Natasha, Parent of 7 year old, Australia
Feedback received privately
Merfolkology Course Details
This Merfolkology Course has been designed to explicitly reflect the principles of play-based and open-ended learning. As a result, children can engage in ways that reflect their own interests and learning styles, and which foster their learning autonomy.
What to expect each week
Session Structure
This Merfolkology Course is held once a week, for five (5) weeks. Each of these sessions lasts 40 minutes and has two parts:
➡ An interactive story time focused on developing vocabulary, background knowledge and concepts.
➡ Hands-on, open-ended mermaid activities that can be engaged with in a variety of ways.
Session content
This Merfolkology course is structured to provide children with high levels of learning autonomy. In other words, this course does not use “pre-selected” topics or themes. Instead, each week we introduce a ‘big idea’. Our storytelling provides an opportunity for young children to both develop some vocabulary to engage with that idea, and to begin exploring what that idea means to them – and to others.
Following each session, additional mermaid activities are provided to continue learning and exploring at home, between each weekly session.
Week 1: Meet the Mermaids, Mermen and Merfolk.
➡ Big idea: The power of imagination.
➡ Exploration: Salt and water art and chemistry.
Week 2: Become a Merperson!
➡ Big idea: We can be ourselves.
➡ Exploration: Creating merfolk (or other character) costumes.
Week 3: Ocean Life.
➡ Big idea: Caring for the ocean.
➡ Exploration: Create a merfolk telescope with recycled materials.
Week 4: Meet an (Almost!) Real-Life Mermaid.
➡ Big idea: What are you curious about? Where might your curiosity lead?
➡ Exploration: Scientific experiments to understand ocean life.
Week 5: Merfolk Worlds.
➡ Big idea: Ocean as a home.
➡ Exploration: Making small ocean worlds.
Fees
This fee for the full five sessions is US-$105. This fee does not include materials, which will need to be purchased individually.
Intended learning outcomes
Learning Outcomes
The intended learning outcomes for this course are from the ACECQA-approved Early Years Learning Framework. These learning outcomes explicitly reflect the needs of young children (0 – 8 years old) with diverse learning styles and cognitive needs at various stages of their development.
This class provides opportunities for children to:
- Explore, infer, predict, and hypothesise in order to develop an increased understanding of the environment and my relationship to it.
- Combine fine-motor, cognitive skills and thinking strategies to achieve increasingly complex patterns of activity to create, communicate, solve-problems and adapt to new situations.
- Manipulate objects and resources in order to investigate, take apart, assemble, invent, assemble, construct, and experiment with cause and effect.
- Make predictions and generalisations about different environments, and communicate these using language, gestures, numbers, and symbols.
- Use language, gestures or visual symbols to communicate and convey meaning about social and personal experiences; mathematical ideas and scientific concepts.
Materials supply list
Because this course is live, hands-on and online, parents will need to provide the required materials for each session.
The supplies required for each session will vary (not every item will be needed for every week). A list will be sent after each class, for the specific materials needed in the following week.
The following supplies will be needed for our mermaid activities over the five week program:
- Sheets of *thick* paper (at least A4 size). Watercolour paper is ideal, but you can also use cardstock/ white cardboard.
- Watercolour paints
- Some paint brushes, and clean water for rinsing
- Child-safe scissors
- Elmer’s/ school/ pvc/ white glue OR a cold-glue gun
- Sticky tape or masking tape
- Any nature or beach collections – shells, sand, leaves, flowers, acorns, pine cones, interesting pebbles, bits of bark, feathers, sea glass, other beach or nature treasures.
- An empty pringles container or postal tube
- Some tissue paper (2-3 different colours)
- Tin foil
- Any craft sparkles you prefer (e.g. sequins, eco-friendly glitter, glitter glue, translucent gems or shells from the Dollar Store, etc.)
- Some clear plastic cups, glasses or clear (plastic or glass) jars
- A good supply of cheap table salt (e.g. a 500g or 1kg bag)
- Ice cubes
- Some solid cooking shortening (available from the supermarket) – e.g. ghee, copha, lard, crisco
- Different coloured playdough or salt dough (a recipe will be provided)
- Some ‘dough tools’ for making different textures and patterns – e.g. spoons, tenderisers
- Fun merfolk dress-ups: scarves, fabrics, colourful clothes
- OPTIONAL – some beading materials (twine, scissors, beads) – cheap kits are often available from department stores, Dollar Stores, etc.
I deliver this Merfolkology Course via the Outschool platform in order to provide families with added trust and safety, including:
Secure Payment | Teacher Background Check and Qualification Verified | Happiness Money-Back Guarantee*
