Pre-school Topics, Block 3, Week 21: We wonder why is the ocean salty

We Wonder

Week 21
We wonder why is the ocean salty

[Note: The emphasis in this story is not on the ocean but on our wondering. Our goal is not to give the answers to the “Why” but to show that we wonder about the sea, but the whales don’t wonder why. To wonder why is part of the preciousness of humanity.]

Point to emphasize
We wonder about so many things when we go to the seaside.

References
Ecclesiastes 1:13

Sample content and conversation with children

[Ask the parents beforehand to have a cup of saltwater ready.] Everyone has a cup filled with water. Let’s drink some! How does it taste? Yes! Salty. Where can you find a lot of salty water? [Let the children answer.] The ocean! Have you ever wondered, “Why the ocean water is salty? Why doesn’t it taste like the water we drink at home?”

Today we are going to see that we wonder about many things we see at the seaside.

Let’s look at the picture of a seashore. There are so many interesting things we can discover there! What are some things that we can see? [Let children answer. Children digging, sand, ocean, fish, seashells, sky.]

When we see things like these, we wonder about them. [Choose two or three of the following examples found at the seaside that we wonder about. In each interaction, make sure to either use the physical object, like a seashell or a pebble, or use a picture. The emphasis in this point is to help the children discover that they do wonder about many things found at the seaside.]

- Hold up a seashell. Ask the children “what do you wonder about this shell?” [Possible answers may be which animal used to live in it? Why are the shells different shapes, sizes, and colors?]
- [Hold up a pebble and repeat the interaction.] What do you wonder about this pebble? [I wonder why pebbles are so smooth. How did they get so smooth?]
- [Show picture of holes/bubbles in the sand.] Sometimes, when the waves crash on the sand and then go back out, we see tiny bubbles in the sand. Have you wondered what is making those bubbles? Are there tiny animals buried under the sand?
- [Show a picture of the vast ocean] Look how HUGE the ocean is! What do you wonder about when you see it? [Possible answers: how much water is there or how deep it is.]
- [Tide pool picture] In tide pools we see starfish, sea urchins and anemones; what do you wonder about them? [I wonder if they are squishy or prickly. Are they plants or animals? Do they move?]. We may try to touch them to figure it out!

There are so many interesting things we can wonder about when we go to the seaside!

[Storyteller: This bullet expands the realm of human wondering from mere curiosity to how the universe is made. Since this is the first topic concerning wondering, this bullet is crucial.]

Did you know that there are people whose jobs are to study all these things we see at the seaside and wonder about? They go to work, and they study these things carefully. They explore. They investigate and learn all they can about them to try to answer all of our wonderings. They do this because God made us so that we wonder. We wonder about how and why things are the way they are.

BUT none of the creatures that live in the ocean wonder! Look at this whale. [Show picture.] Why is it opening its mouth? It’s trying to catch dinner! It opens its mouth and gets a big gulp of water, as much as there is in a swimming pool. But even though there’s salty water in its mouth, the whale thinks nothing of it! It doesn’t care if the water is salty. Whales live in the salty water all the time. Some whales live for almost a hundred years, but they never wonder why the water is cold and salty. God made us differently than the whales! Aren’t you glad that we wonder about so many things around us? God made us so that we wonder!

Suggested activities/games