Every school year, just before the winter recess, students at Forest Lake Elementary School in Wantagh get a reminder of the warmer weather activities to come with its Beach Day tradition.

Forest Lake's recently held Beach Day celebrates the impending spring weather that will follow shortly after the winter vacation recess. In addition to dressing for the beach and bringing in beach towels, teachers at all grade levels throughout the building engaged students in classroom activities that reinforced current subject matter, while incorporating the day’s ‘beach’ theme. 

Third graders in Kathy Langsam’s class studied buoyancy and how items sink or float in water. The class then constructed boats out of clay and tested their designs in a pan of water. 

Other classrooms weighed and measured seashells and starfish, and kindergarteners even used sand to construct castles and hone their character-building skills.