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Sailboat craft to float down a homemade river

9 Comments Preschool, Kindergarten, 1st Grade, 2nd Grade, 3rd Grade

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Sailboat craft to float down a homemade river || Gift of Curiosity

In this post I’m sharing about a sailboat craft I did with my kids, starting with what prompted us to do it!

Step 1: Read about sail boats

Lately, QBoy has been asking me to read the book Sail Away by Donald Crews to him over and over.

I decided to capitalize on his interest in sail boats by having the kids make their own sailboats to float down a homemade “river” similar to what I had seen in a post at Five Little Chefs.

Step 2: Make your own sailboat craft

I took our our craft sticks and some ribbon in order to make the sailboat masts.

The kids cut the ribbon to make a sail.

Sailboat craft to float down a homemade river || Gift of Curiosity

Then they glued the ribbons sails to the craft sticks masts.

Sailboat craft to float down a homemade river || Gift of Curiosity

Sailboat craft to float down a homemade river || Gift of Curiosity

Of course, we decided to add a bit of bling to our sailboats as well using our adhesive back jewels. 🙂

Sailboat craft to float down a homemade river || Gift of Curiosity

Sailboat craft to float down a homemade river || Gift of Curiosity

I had these wonderful little tin baking pans left over, and we decided to use them as our boats. (If you don’t have something like this, you could try fashioning your own boat out of tin foil, or even using the plastic lid from a cottage cheese or yogurt container.) The kids stuck their masts into a ball of play dough and then stuck the play dough into the boats to make the masts stand up. The less play dough you use, the better, because too much play dough makes the boat too heavy to sail.

Sailboat craft to float down a homemade river || Gift of Curiosity

The boats came out very cute!

Sailboat craft to float down a homemade river || Gift of Curiosity

Step 3: Make a river

I got out a 6″ folding table and laid it down on the grass with one end propped up. I imagine that a sloped driveway might also work well for this activity.

Sailboat craft to float down a homemade river || Gift of Curiosity

Sorry for the awful lighting in this photo.

Then the kids helped me roll a sheet of aluminum foil down the table to make our river.

Sailboat craft to float down a homemade river || Gift of Curiosity

Once we had the foil stretched the whole length of the table, we folded up the sides of the foil to help direct the flow of water.

Sailboat craft to float down a homemade river || Gift of Curiosity

Step 4: Float your sailboat craft down the river!

And that’s when the fun really began!

The kids used the hose to run water down the river.

Sailboat craft to float down a homemade river || Gift of Curiosity

The boats sailed down the river along with the rushing water, much to the kids delight!

Sailboat craft to float down a homemade river || Gift of Curiosity

More summer resources for learning and fun

More summer posts from Gift of Curiosity

  • Rainbow bubbles
  • Watermelon oobleck
  • Ice chalk
  • Hidden ice treasures
  • Sun prints art activity
  • Summer printables pack
  • Summer do-a-dot printables
  • Watermelon printables pack
  • Watermelon do-a-dot printables
  • Camping do-a-dot printables
  • Ice cream I Spy
  • Ice cream Sudoku


Looking for more summertime activities? Check out my Summer Activities for Kids page and my Summer Activities board on Pinterest.

Follow Gift of Curiosity’s board Summer on Pinterest.

Products mentioned in this post:

Filed Under: Arts and Crafts, Preschool, Kindergarten, 1st Grade, 2nd Grade, 3rd Grade Tagged With: sailboats, water activities

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Reader Interactions

9 Comments

  1. Stephanie

    June 17, 2013 at 6:58 pm

    Gosh you have neat ideas! Love it!

    Reply to this comment
  2. Deceptively Educational

    June 17, 2013 at 7:48 pm

    WOW! This looks like a blast! My sons would really have fun with this! I’m stopping over from Preschool Powol Packets.

    Reply to this comment
  3. Sarah

    June 18, 2013 at 4:45 am

    Awesome. Pinning another one of your ideas!

    Reply to this comment
  4. Karen Bell

    June 18, 2013 at 6:20 am

    That looks great. I think we will have to try making some boats now 🙂 #tuesdaytots

    Reply to this comment
  5. Ann @ My Nearest and Dearest

    June 18, 2013 at 8:52 am

    I love how easy to make these boats are! And that river looks like so much fun!

    Reply to this comment
  6. Natasha, Big Energy Little Learners

    June 18, 2013 at 9:30 pm

    Oh my goodness this is too cute! Very creative!

    Reply to this comment
  7. Tara from The Magnolia Barn

    June 18, 2013 at 11:24 pm

    What a cute idea! This looks so simple and easy to do.

    Reply to this comment
  8. Debs

    June 24, 2013 at 7:05 pm

    Thanks for linking this fun activity to Tuesday Tots. I’ve featured it this week. Have a great day 🙂

    Reply to this comment
    • Katie

      June 24, 2013 at 7:23 pm

      Thanks for featuring our activity Debs!

      Reply to this comment

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