Boat Activity for Toddlers

Do any other moms of toddlers struggle with how to keep your toddler entertained all day? As a stay-at-home (or very, very part-time work-at-home mom to be technical), I sometimes find it hard to keep my kids 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 then ended our session by doing our letter “B” coloring activity which I printed from Family Friendly Work.

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.

If you liked this boat activity for toddlers, you may also like:

• Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Toddler Learning Activity
• The Best Tips for Dealing with Toddler Tantrums
• Ocean Activity for Preschoolers
• The Rainbow Fish Preschool Activity
• The Very Hungry Caterpillar Activity