Boat Activity for Toddlers

If you have a toddler or preschooler who loves boats you have to check out this super cute boat activity for toddlers and optional learning activity. The homemade boats are also fun to float during bath time or in your water table!

Do any other moms of toddlers struggle with how to keep your toddler entertained all day? I am so lucky to have found a homeschool preschool group! My group meets once every other week. We all take turns hosting and teaching which works out great! It’s great to have something educational to look forward to every other week without always having to plan it.

It was my turn to host, so let me tell you all about my boat activity for toddlers! Don’t worry, if you are not part of homeschooling or learning play dates group I’m confident you can still do this easy activity with your children.

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🛥️ Blue Boat

We used the book, Blue Boat by Kersten Hamiliton to do this craft and learning activity. Another mom in our learning play dates group held the book for me while I read and did some corresponding signs. I picked this book because my son LOVES this series. I hope to come up with an activity for her book Red Truck as well.

📗 Optional ASL Learning Activity

Using American Sign Language, I signed the major words on the page while I read including: blue boat, Mayday (I used help to simplify), ocean, storm, boats, clouds, brave, hurry, go, home, and hero. If you don’t have any knowledge of ASL, no worries! You can either read the book without signing or check out the Baby Sign Language website to learn the signs. It can be a lot of fun learning the signs together.

I know it would have been technically correct to sign every single word or finger spell but we are teaching toddlers sign language, not adults so please keep that in mind. After reading the book, we went over the signs again a few times and then we started on our boats.

✏️ How to make the boats

For the boats you’ll need:

• Empty lids
• Popsicle sticks
• Play dough
• Tape
• Paper cut into small triangles for the sail

It’s super simple to make these boats. Tape the paper sail to the popsicle stick and then using a ball of play dough adhere to your empty lid. We all watched our boats float in a big tupperware container I filled with water.

We ended by doing a “b is for boat” coloring page. The original website I grabbed this coloring page is no longer available so I designed a new one below.

Not only was this activity super fun but it was also very inexpensive activity. I already had the play dough, lids, and tape so I just had to buy a pack of popsicle sticks and the book Blue Boat. We already have several titles by Kersten Hamiliton that we love. She writes some really fun children’s books if you haven’t heard of her books before.

❔ Activity FAQs

☺️ Other fun preschool activities:

B is for Boat coloring page

If sharing, please link directly back to the site and not the PDF. This will keep the printables easy to download with no email required.

To download and print the b is for boat coloring page, click the download button below. This dot marker PDF is free for personal use only, no commercial reproduction of any kind is allowed.

The PDF will print in black and white on regular 8.5 x 11 inch paper.