Stick Raft

I saw this raft on one of my favourite blogs Childhood Magic and just fell in love with it - how adorable is it! Unfortunately I didnt have any bamboo or canvas around, so our version is a lot less pretty but still worked out ok. We used small sticks collected from our local park and pipecleaners to join it all together since knots were a bit tricky for Bubble's three year old fingers, and since it wasn't going to be a 'keeper' toy we just made the sail from scrapbook paper. Bubble chose the paper she wanted and I cut a large triangle shape with a hole in the centre top and centre bottom big enough to slip over the 'mast'.

WE USED:

* sticks or bamboo cut into lengths
* pipecleaners or string
* thick paper (scrapbook, construction etc...)
* scissors
* some water to float your raft in

Other ideas: try making a few and having a race, or personalise the sail with your childs artwork. We were able to float small passengers on our raft which made playing with it even more fun. Expand on the game by incorporating 'sink' and 'float', see how many objects you can find that sink to the bottom or float like the raft does.

Our not very pretty but still sturdy raft :-)

To make the sail I just jammed a stick between two of the sticks making up the raft and slipped the paper sail over it. You could secure the sail with tape or glue if it wont stay in place.

Bubble enjoyed blowing her raft across the water.

Our first passenger :-)

Squeak couldn't blow the raft around like her big sister, but worked out how to splash the water to make it move instead.