Kids Ice Boat made of ice!! Free and Fun!

Today my absolutely wonderful six year old son came to me and said that he was bored and wanted to go back to school. (It's Christmas break for almost another week!) This both shocked me and made me a little sad. I must have been enjoying his company way more than he was mine. I can’t remember EVER wanting to go to school. I’d have stayed home with my boring mom as opposed to sitting one second longer than I needed in school! It crushed me to think that I was more boring than my mother!

I asked him if he wanted to paint and he just shook his little blonde haired head and looked so close to tears it broke my heart. I thought about driving him to his school so he could see that no-one was there but worried he’d want to stay anyway and that would have crushed my spirit completely! So instead I decided to bring out the big guns and dig in my wasteland of childhood memories to find something that amused me growing up. Considering I grew up very poor there wasn’t much that we could do. We were so poor we couldn’t even afford to live on the wrong side of the tracks! Lol. But after a few minutes of quiet contemplation I came up with some pretty good ideas and this was the winner!

This is simple and low waste along with being free which was why I can remember so much about it! I’m guessing it was my mother’s “go to” game when we drove her nuts! Ha!

(You can find this and many more of my projects on a site called Instructables.com HERE. It's a site where people share things they have made.)

Here's what you will need:

• plastic water bottle or small plastic cup
• toothpick
• paper
• scissors

Also a way to freeze the water. I used my freezer.

Time to cut!!

Let's grab your plastic water bottle and cut all the way around about an inch and a half from the bottom. This will be what we use to freeze our ice boat bottom.

Cut a triangle out of your paper to use as the sail. This can be cut with scissors or torn by hand. Either way looks great!


AND THE FLAG

Time to make the flag out of the triangle of paper and the toothpick.

Take your triangle of paper and push the toothpick through the bottom and top one time. Look at my photo to see how. It's easy and cancels out the need for tape.

Make a base for your flag to freeze upright.

Now this is where my brain started to smoke! I had to figure out an easy way to keep the toothpick flag upright in the water while it was freezing. I decided low tech was best so that my son could do it on his own whenever he wanted.

Take what's left of your paper and fold it in half, then in half again to make a nice square. Next you will fold up the open sides as seen in my photos. This will keep your paper from opening in the freezer and moving your flag.

Fill your cup/plastic water bottle bottom with water halfway.

Poke the toothpick through the middle of the square paper and sit on top of your cup. Push your toothpick to the bottom of your cup so flag will be sturdy once water freezes.

Place in freezer until frozen!! Take out and enjoy! You can make several and have a race in the sink or if you are close to a body of water then have a race day out doors!

I love FREE fun and sharing cool kid projects with other likeminded people! I hope you enjoyed this and pass it on to others!

Come Sail Away, Come Sail Away, Come Sail Away With Me!

Here's a photo of my little guy having fun with his Ice Boat! It's winter outside so we decided not to go to the beach or river and just have fun in the back-yard! He put on his turtle neck shirt and sweatpants and pretended to be at the ocean! I love imaginations! They are also FREE! lol

*Some variations are:

• Add food coloring to the water. This is great because you can have a red boat or blue or green or yellow… you get the jest.
• Add a favorite little toy to the water before freezing! This should be done if you plan on staying home and playing in the sink or tub. I’d hate for a favorite toy to be lost at sea!
• Make a bigger ice boat by freezing a bowl of water with a wooden dowel as a flag pole over night! Hours of fun the next day and bigger target for great photos!
• Add a finish line. I am going to do a post showing how I made the one seen in these photos. It should be up soon. Maybe by tomorrow and was also free to make!

If you have any suggestions please comment below. I would love to have lots of new ways to play FREE ice boat games with my kiddosJ