Underwater worlds are magical. Oh, the stories that can be told about seahorses, mermaids and hidden treasures!

Throughout the years I’ve noticed how tents are simply irresistible to children. When we decided to do an activity around the “under the sea” theme, I knew I wanted to create a true underwater world. A place where my little ones could hide away and pretend to REALLY be under the water for a while.

When I saw my 4 1/2 year old daughter putting on her mermaid dress, slip into the tent and heard her singing songs about dolphins and whales, I knew I pulled it off!

I hope our project will inspire many amazing under the sea pretend play worlds under dining tables around the world!

Creating an Under the Sea Pretend Play World

To create our under the sea pretend play world we simply strapped our ocean ceiling to the table.

This ocean ceiling is surprisingly easy to make! (You can find the tutorial here.) Or you can simply use a blue sheet, blanket, sarong, baby wrap or whatever you can find and tie it around the table somehow.

On the floor we put an old yellow curtain, some pillows and soft toys.

Once our ocean ceiling and ocean floor were set up, we started making some simple ocean animals from materials we had in our craft cupboard. We tend to wing it but should you be looking for some proper inspiration on what to make, I’ve collected a few gorgeously creative ideas for you:

– Fish Paper Craft from Buggy and Buddy

– Finding Nemo Inspired Paper Plate Crafts from I Heart Arts and Crafts

– Jelly Fish Recycle Craft from Teach Me Mommy

– Cupcake Liner Fish from Learn with Play at Home

– Rainbow Fish from Parenting Chaos

– Fine Motor Jellyfish Craft from Buggy and Buddy

– Rocking Paper Plate Crab from Crafts on Sea

– Easy DIY Mermaid Tail Craft from Playground Parkbench

– Underwater Treasure: Pony Bead and Prism Suncatchers from Rhythms of Play

Making the Underwater World Come Alive

After a whole lot of crafting, it’s time to put it all together.

The children can hang their ocean art work from the ceiling and together you can think about other things from around your home that could belong in an under the sea pretend play world. There could be blankets, pillows, dress ups, a pirate treasure, bubbles, mermaid tail dress ups, soft toys, felt animals and whatever you can come up with.

If you are using a sheet or blanket or something else as the ocean ceiling, now is also the time to perhaps attach some crepe paper or fabric scraps to the ceiling. You can do that with safety pins, duct tape or plain painter’s tape.

On the ocean ceiling I made I attached some buttons where you can easily hang the crafts and some felt animals from.

This is how our under the sea pretend play world looked when we were finished:

And when you’re ready to claim the full use of your table again, you can use your ocean crafts to in this amazing under the sea cardboard theatre from Make it Your Own.

The whole ocean theme is just so much fun to play with. If it’s not on your radar already, you might want to have a look at our mermaid travel tin, our mini ocean world or our day at the beach small world. They’re all pretty adorable if I may say so myself.

By the way, did you know that this post is part of the A to Z Rainy Day Activities Blog Hop hosted by Something 2 Offer? You can find them all here.

I’m pretty sure all this will keep you busy for a while!

Ann*

Loved this post? You can pin it here.