Make these colorful sailboats and play a few Maths games with your preschooler when you are done crafting. These are so easy to make and quick too!
You will need:
- Off cut pine pieces, approximately 5cm x 2.5cm
- Round Craft sticks
- Craft paint
- Coloured cardboard
- Thin Chenille stems
- Bottle caps
What to do:
Lightly sand the pine pieces and drill a small hole in the centre for the craft stick to fit. Paint the pine pieces in different, bright colours.
Out of the cardboard, cut the triangles for the flags, two per boat. You can match the colours to the bases or use mix and match colours for an even more colourful version.
Punch two small holes in each flag, in line with each other.
Attach the flags to the craft stick using a pieces of chenille stems. Twist at the back to tie the flags secure to the stick.
Insert the flagpole into the hole in base of the boat. This step is great for color matching, so do not glue them so it can be again and again.
Math games
Game 1 – Counting skills up to ten
Count the boats, forwards, backwards and in twos.
Game 2 – Practice bonds up to ten
Stick or write numbers 1-10 on the bottle caps. Make one set of plus, minus and equal signs.
Example: Let your pre-schooler take two boats, match the number two on the bottle cap, place the cap below the boat. Place the “plus” sign next, and add another number (smaller than the number 5), let your child count the boats all together and place the correct number of boats and bottle cap after the equal sign. This is a wonderful visual activity to consolidate the basic addition/ subtraction concept.
Game 3 – Number recognition
Stick numbers 1 – 10 on the boats and let your pre-schooler match the number to the same number as on the boat.
Game 4 – Practice ordinal numbers
Do a pretend boat race. On a large surface, line all the boats up, take turns to roll a dice and move your boats forwards, one boat length to match the number on the dice. which boat came first? Which boat came second? Which boat came last?
TIP: Once you are done playing games, you can pack the boats away to use at a later stage, perhaps as party decorations, or in a sensory bin.
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