Boats

Last week we made some paper boats and I meant to sort out this post then but was sidetracked organising M's birthday and trying to finish of a dress and leggings for L for her birthday this week. This is a really good you tube tutorial for what I always think of as the traditional paper boat and below I have put together a step by step guide for a more complicated one.

You need a sheet of origami paper, you can get some water proof origami paper, which is brilliant. Fold a sheet of paper in half

open the sheet out and fold the edges into the middle as below.

Fold down each corner as below,

then fold the points down again at both ends, like you do when you make paper aeroplanes.

Now bring the centre point to the middle fold on both sides.

Now for the very tricky part, open up the centre folds, as below and then gently turn the boat inside out, take your time as it is easy to tear the paper.

It should now look like the boat below.

 We made some boats, a duck and some simple paddle boats.

Or paddle boat, which worked very well when you wound the paddle the right well, if you don't it stays in one place hitting the side of the tray, much to the amusement of the children. We just used some thickish card, cut into rectangles to make the paddle boats, then cut a small rectangle out of one side, trim down the piece of card that you cut out to make the paddles.

 We spent time sailing the boats and sometimes pretending to be the wind and blowing the boats in different directions.

Seeing what would happen if you filled the boat with water

and then finding some people to have a boat ride in the bigger boats.