Sail Away: Boat Storytime with a Craft and STEM activities

Sail Your Boat Station

Every three years, my fair city participates in the Tall Ship Celebration. This festival is a huge deal and it's one of my favorite recurring events around town. And we have a lot of cool events in the summer, so that's really saying something. I wanted to do a simple program for the Monday night before the festival this year to have something to get the 2-6 year olds pumped up for those tall ships!

Sail Away Story and a Craft Program: 
Monday, July 11, 2016 at 6:30 pm


Craft: Pool Noodle Sailboats
Supplies: Pool noodles cut into approximately 12-15 pieces (I used a serrated kitchen knife), drinking straws cut into 3 inch lengths, craft foam for the sales, hole punches, scissors.

Book List: 
Sail Away by Donald Crews
Little Tug by Stephen Savage
On the Boat by Cynthia Amoroso

Songs, Rhymes, and Storytelling: 
Let's All Do a Little Clapping --my storytime opening song

Let's all do a little clapping!
Let's all do a little clapping!
Let's all do a little clapping,
And spread a little cheer. 
(we clapped, tapped, drove our boats, swayed like a sailboat, etc.)

Row, Row, Row Your Boat (traditional and "screaming" verse)

Row, row, row your boat,
Gently down the stream,
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
Life is but a dream.

Row, row, row your boat,
Gently down the stream,
If you see a crocodile,
Don’t forget to scream.

"Zoom Down the River" (I learned "Zoom Down the Highway" from Jbrary and adapted it to be about a boat)

Zoom down the river
Zoom down the river
Zoom down the river

Sink or Float Station

FAST!

Up goes the drawbridge
Up goes the drawbridge
Up goes the drawbridge
Our ship is going past.

Down goes the drawbridge.
Down goes the drawbridge.
Down goes the drawbridge.
Our ship has past at last.

Zoom down the river
Zoom down the river
Zoom down the river
FAST!

"I Love Sailing" Draw and Tell (I also wrote a draw and tell story for this program! It will be posted on Friday!)

Activity Signs:
We had two stations: One where kids could blow their sailboats across a bucket using straws and another where they tested household and office objects to see whether they would sink or float.

I made the signs for the activity stations using Canva. You are welcome to use them yourself. Download them here.