Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Cork Boats

Our theme this week is Transportation, and today's topic was boats. I have a ton of corks lying around. I bought a bunch online when I made a wine cork wreath several years ago and then my dad gave me a whole bag of corks that he's been saving for years. So I dug those out and put them in groups of 3 so they were all similar in size. Then I hot-glued them together.
At school, the kids painted the corks.
They painted them on little pieces of paper so I would be able to carry them to the drying table without getting my fingers full of paint. They could paint the top and sides if they wanted, but they didn't paint the bottom. While the corks were drying, the kids went to another table to make a quick sail. I just cut out little sails from construction paper. The kids used paper punch pieces (that were left over from a project we did last week) to decorate their sails.
Then they picked out a colored toothpick and I taped on the sail. When the corks were dry, I stuck the toothpick in the middle cork.
And then, the best part -- we filled our sink so we could see them float!

The kids were amazed that they actually floated! And when I showed them what happens when you blow on them, they were all excited to get them home in their bathtub so they could have races! (And one sweetie even mentioned putting it in his toilet! I told them all not to do that or I would definitely be hearing about it from their parents tomorrow morning!)
Note: Some of the paint started to run in the water, so you might want to use waterproof paint, or at least not washable paint!

**Linking up to the parties on my sidebar!**

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Oh wow I love this!!! I have a few corks I've been saving without a plan for them. Now I have a plan, yay! Thanks for sharing with The Sunday Showcase.

Carrie said...

Oh, how fun!! I love it!! Now I just need some corks. Thank you for sharing at Sharing Saturday!! Sorry I'm visiting/commenting so late!

Unknown said...

love this idea! what sort of paint did you use that was water resistant? and did the hot glue hold it all together ok? thanks so much!

Betsy said...

Unknown, the paint we used wasn't water resistant. It was washable paint and I noticed the water slightly turned the color of the paint. So I would suggest not using washable paint. And as far as I know, the hot glue worked very well, even in the water!