Cork Sailboats

 We made simple cork sailboats last week.

 The kids started by wrapping rubber bands around 2 corks.  They then decorated little sails that we had cut out from construction paper.  We laminated the sails (since we wanted to be able to play with them for several days) and then stuck a long plastic toothpick through the sail and between the two corks.  Simple!

Materials for sailboats...corks, rubberbands, long plastic toothpicks, and crayons for decorating.

The fun began when the children began playing with their sailboats.  Some tested their boats in our little pool,

others worked together to try to make a tin foil river in our sandbox. The river probably suffered from having too many engineers and workers (there were quite a few holes in the foil:).  

That night I went to Home Depot and bought two 10' plastic gutters (they were less that $6 each).  My co-teacher had the same idea and also bought end pieces for the gutter she bought. We put the one with end caps in the sandbox in a ditch that the kids built.  

 We attached the other two together with clips and the kids raced their boats.

It would have worked better if we had a hose.  Instead the kids had to keep bringing the water from the end bin (which was lower) back to the start bin.

This is an assembly line to move the water back to the top bin. :)

The kids were excited to bring their boats home to try them in the tub.