I have three small kids.

My four year old and three year old are actively interested in learning letters and numbers and regularly ask to read.

The youngest is 18 months and loves to do anything and everything that big sister and brother are doing.

Mother Goose Time is wonderful about providing activities that I can use and modify with all of my kids.

Playing and Learning about Boats

We spent a day learning more about boats.

We covered that boats start with the letter “b” and made the appropriate phonetic sound, but we also

played an awesome boat game,
read some fabulous boat themed books,
and most fun of all designed and built our own boats, which we set sail in the back yard water table!

Boat Game

Mother Goose Time provided a paper boat, circle stickers, and matching cards for each child.

I handed out markers, tape, and scissors and let the kids get to work designing their boats.

Discuss

Mother Goose Time gives us discussion questions, which are perfect as conversation starters while the kids are coloring and designing their projects.

The question for this activity was “What might you see on a boat?”

Nature Girl, my four year old daughter is pretty sure you would see some dolphins and tuna. She has dreams of going deep sea fishing soon thanks to a recent National Geographic book we read.

My three year old son, Owl is certain there would be more boats and some that had cars. I can’t wait to take him on a ferry someday.

Explore

We talked a little bit about how boats move and pushed some objects around pretending they were boats, including a recently abandoned laundry basket in the living room.

Apparently, Mom was right, those socks just refuse to put themselves away.

Create

Each of my kids decorated and assembled the provided paper boats.

My four year old did the entire thing herself, my three year old and 18 month old each needed some assistance.

The decorating part was fun for all of them.

Now, if only I can get the youngest to quit chewing on the markers…..he had blue lips and teeth for the better part of the morning.

Play

We used the matching cards to play a matching game.

I drew a card from the stack and the kids used their boats to go pick up a matching card.

Since, there were multiple matching cards provided, the kids were all able to play at the same time.

I adore when my kids exhibit cooperative play, such as seen here with my Nature Girl and her little brother, Guppy.

She is helping him find and collect his cards, while telling him the word for what is on the card.

I’m grateful to Mother Goose Time for providing opportunities like this one.

Boat Books

We read two fabulous boat books.

Toy Boat

My kids are extremely fond of Toy Boat by Randall De Seve.

I somehow managed to return that one to the library without snapping a picture. Whoops!

A young boy adores his boat that he has made himself, but it gets lost at sea.

Some “real” boats are unkind, but one humbles himself enough to care for the little boat and helps him get home.

The illustrations in this one are exceptional.

There’s a particularly beautiful picture of the little boat lost at sea with a moon whose eyes are full of tears.

There is such great emotional impact in these images; I just love it!

Our library also had a copy of this one, but it would be worth picking up used on Amazon.

The Little Sailboat

We also read The Little Sailboat by Lois Lenski.

In this story Captain Small and his dog Tinker go on an adventure in a sailboat.

Much of the lingo and language is accurate for that used when sailing and my kids enjoyed picking up some new vocabulary.

It’s worth an add to your library stack.