Seashore Diagram

After  long walk on the beach and bringing back several buckets full of treasure such as these I sat down with the boys and to them a bit about the strand line and the intertidal zone from our One Small Square: Seashore book. The strand line is the area on the beach where certain things are commonly found. For example, the crabs were almost always found at the strand line. The strand line is where the water comes up to the shore and leaves new things from the sea. You usually can find eel grass and other sea weeds there as well as kelp. It is easy to spot on any beach. After reading and looking at the beach itself to see just what the book meant, we made a cardboard diagram of it.

 This is Max's diagram of the tidal zones.

T.J.'s diagram

Zak's diagram.

How to make one:

• First select a nice piece of cardboard for the diagram.
• Next paint on the sea portion using up about 1/3 of the cardboard surface. This breaks the composition into thirds.
• Let dry completely before going onto the next step.
• Then paint some white glue onto the rest of the cardboard and sprinkle sand on it. Make sure the sand covers all of the surface. 
• Let dry completely before going onto the next step.
• The glue on articles from the beach from each of the tidal zones.
• Label the tidal zones if you want to. 

Have a look at the process in our slide show below: