The forecast earlier in the week said that today would be cooler, so I wanted an activity for Water Wednesday that could be done either inside or outside. I also wanted something easy to do because I had to go in to school for professional development for most of the day. When I came across this ice boat activity from Alpha Mom, I knew it would be perfect.
Earlier in the week, I prepped the ice boats by cutting down two straws and then taping them into cups. I added some water and put them into the freezer to freeze. I also cut sails from construction paper and punched holes in them.
This would be a perfect activity for a water table, but unfortunately we haven’t set ours up yet, so I used a glass baking dish. Since it turned out to be a nice warm day, I set up our boats on the back deck.
Buddy has no prior experience with ice, so he wasn’t sure what to think about the boats. He also has never played in water outside of the bath or a pool, and he said “uh oh” when he got the first couple drops on himself. However, Buddy realized that it was ok to get a little wet, and he started to have fun.
Buddy loves to study things and figure them out, so once the ice started melting, he picked up the boats to check them out. He also enjoyed pushing the boats around in the pan and just touching the water and watching it ripple.
Once our water table is set up, I want to try the ice boats again. However, I would make a couple changes. Because the ice was so big and the dish wasn’t very deep, the boats didn’t actually float. That might not be an issue in our water table, but I’d like to try smaller dixie cups anyway. I also made my sails too big and they got a little soggy. Fortunately, Buddy didn’t mind.
