Today I have an easy mosaic art sea turtle activity. Add ideas from my fun From Egg to Sea Turtle Nature Unit Study & Lapbook page to make it for multiple ages.
Activities for middle schoolers can be a little more challenging to find.
So, we did this mosaic sea turtle activity to let them show off their artistic side while they learn at the same time.
It uses only 3 items and is great for art but also helps continue developing fine motor skills, patience, planning, creativity, and problem-solving.
While putting together the mosaic your middle schooler can watch a video on sea turtles, listen to an audiobook, or listen to you read aloud.
While this is a more challenging activity, a patient elementary student could handle this as well.
Studying marine biology covers science, technology, engineering, and mathematics and is a wonderful option for middle or high school.
Even without a curriculum, your child can get a well-rounded education through interesting texts, videos, field trips, and hands-on learning like this sea turtle activity.
5 Fun Sea Turtle Facts
First, look at these sea turtle facts.
- Jellyfish are the main food for the leatherback sea turtle.
- The digestive systems of adult hawksbill sea turtles can neutralize the sharp, glass spicules and the toxic chemicals that are found in many of the sponges they eat.
- Olive ridley turtles practice nesting in large groups, known as “arribada”, in fact, the mass group can include up to 300,00 individual females laying their eggs on the beach.
- The Kemp’s ridley turtle is the most endangered sea turtle species, and the smallest.
- Loggerhead turtles take up to 39 years to reach sexual maturity.
We used Ocean Anatomy as our reference for the design and found plenty of great sea turtle information like the life cycle, identifying different species, and what types of things endanger them.
The first thing you need to do before starting is decide on your design.
It can be simpler than mine if you like, you can just make one larger sea turtle with a rainbow of beads all the way around it or come up with an even more intricate design.
You can create adult or baby sea turtles for your design, a nest on the beach, swimming in the ocean, or a combination of both.
More Sea Turtle Activity Ideas
- If you can’t include a field trip to your own local aquarium to see the sea turtles check out Loggerhead MarineLife Centers Live Turtle Cam.
- Here is a simple Sea Turtle Art Project by Easy Peasy Art School on youtube.
- Hands-on Egg Carton Sea Turtle Life Cycle Activity
- This step-by-step clay turtle is another fun project for older kids.
- Cutest Ever Egg Carton Sea Turtle Craft and Learning Activities for Kids
- Egg Carton Sea Turtle Life Cycle Activity
- Travel Channel has a list of places where you can observe sea turtle nests in the U.S. if you happen to live near or are traveling near the beach.
Also, look at some of these books about sea turtles.
10 Sea Turtle Resources
Add some books about sea turtles and hands-on resources to your lesson or unit study to bring it to life.
Sea turtles are fascinating. Hatched from eggs smaller than a baseball, some can grow to weigh over a thousand pounds. Once adults, they can live to be around 100 years old. And when it's time to nest, they migrate more than 1,000 miles. With colorful, clear illustrations and straightforward text, Gail Gibbons introduces the eight kinds of sea turtles living in the ocean today. Learn the similarities and differences with labeled diagrams and experience the hatching of the tiny turtle babies with detailed illustrations. This updated edition now includes the most up-to-date information about these beloved reptiles, as reviewed by an expert vetter in the field of herpetology.
Celebrating the love between mother and child comes an achingly beautiful story that has captured hearts around the world. Written by a new mom, by accident, when she sang a little song to her fussing newborn, I'll Follow the Moon proudly donates proceeds to charity: every book saves a turtle.
Follow Rothman’s inquisitive mind and perceptive eye along shorelines, across the open ocean, and below the waves for an artistic exploration of the watery universe. Through her drawings, discover how the world’s oceans formed, why the sea is salty, and the forces behind oceanic phenomena such as rogue waves. Colorful anatomical profiles of sea creatures from crustacean to cetacean, surveys of seafaring vessels and lighthouses, and the impact of plastic and warming water temperatures are just part of this compendium of curiosities that will entertain and educate readers of all ages.
Who could resist celebrating sea turtles? They may seem like lazy ocean reptiles drifting with the oceans’ currents, but they are actually long-distance swimmers that spend their entire lives searching for food and a mate. What’s more, they come with their own built-in GPS, returning to the exact beach where they were born to lay their own eggs. Kids will learn all about these tranquil and mysterious animals through brilliant photography and illustrations, plus the trusted and distinctive content you love from NG Kids!
A book that tells how turtles survive with the help of protection programs.
The book's pithy, well-organized sections are lavishly illustrated. It is a guide for anyone who is the least bit curious about these fascinating marine animals. Bite-sized installments harmonize with multiple images on each page to make this book a unique and entertaining resource. The story it tells covers understanding, experiencing, and saving our sea turtles, with descriptions of how these endangered animals contribute to our happiness and why they deserve a helping hand.
The mother turtle has a vital job to do: dig a nest in which she will lay eggs that will hatch into part of the next generation of leatherbacks. With only one in a thousand of the eggs for this critically endangered species resulting in an adult sea turtle, the odds are stacked against her and her offspring.
Children can see how animals change and grow. Realistic detail showing a different stage in the development of animals.
Uniquely molded textures and richly painted details bring them to life and help inspire creativity for kids.
It is a great way to expand the growth with children through physical science.
A triumphant story of environmental activism, community, and friendship: Acclaimed activist Philippe Cousteau and renowned author Deborah Hopkinson team up to offer a story of the powerful difference young people can make in the world. Meet Viv, who has a new home and a new school by the sea and follow her as she finds her way in a new place and helps bring together a whole community to save the sea turtles of the South Carolina coast.
Describes the life cycle of sea turtles discussing reproduction, birth, and adult life.
Finally, look how to make thise fun mosaic sea turtle activity.
How to Make a Mosaic Art Sea Turtle Activity
You will need:
- Pony beads
- Cheap round cake pan (Dollar Tree)
- Permanent markers
Grab a small round cake pan.
I suggest using a Dollar Tree pan because you will not want to use it for food once the chemicals from the beads have contaminated it.
Place it where you will be working, you want to move it around as little as possible once you start working on it.
If your beads are not sorted, spread them out so they are easier to sort through, we put ours on a larger baking sheet.
The easiest way I found to lay out the design is to start in the middle with your turtle. Start with a diamond shape and a head and flippers.
Tweezers are very helpful to put beads into place, especially when you get into more detailed or crowded areas.
Ocean Mosaic Art
Continue working on your design, you can create a water and sand background.
Add white for waves and you can even make a baby sea turtle popping out of an egg on the beach.
Fill the entire surface, you want your beads to not be able to move much at all.
Until you fill it all in you will probably need to reposition your more detailed work a bit.
Once your pan is filled in carefully move it into an oven preheated to 375℉.
Bake for 20-30 minutes until melted.
Here is the design after 10 minutes in the oven…
20 minutes…
30 minutes…
Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely, you will hear a little crackling and popping as it cools and releases from the pan.
Once cool it will flip right out of the pan.
Trust the process, even when you flip it over to the smooth side you are gonna think it doesn’t look like much, but we are going to fix that in this next step.
Flip to the smooth side and use a black Sharpie to trace the outline of your turtles, this gives them a little definition and really makes them pop.
If you want to hang it for display, you can hot glue a loop of ribbon to the back.
