Tin Foil River and Mini Ice Boats

My kids love playing with water when the weather gets warm. It can keep them busy like almost nothing else. When I saw these tin foil rivers at Camo & Bows, I knew we had a winner.


I made a smaller version of our natural ice boats to float on the river. I filled some ice cube trays with colored water, covered them with plastic wrap, and poked toothpicks through.

Back in the olden days, we used to make Kool-Aid popsicles this way.

When they were frozen I added some little paper sails.

The river part of it was equally easy. I used the cheap aluminum foil from the dollar store. Just unroll it, curl up the sides a little, and start the garden hose. It doesn't need to be a great big hill, but a slope is definitely helpful.

This entertained my three year old and almost five year old for the better part of an afternoon with only one incident: Drew kinked the hose and waited for Lainey to peer into it before letting go and giving her a massive blast of cold water to the face. (Remember that shrieking you heard Monday afternoon? It was coming from my backyard.)

Even when the ice boats melted, they found other things to float and built some waterfalls. There's talk of adding a bridge tomorrow.

A great book to pair with this activity is Where the River Begins. As they watch the river flow past their house, Josh and Aaron make up stories about where the river begins - stories that prompt them to set out to discover the river's origin.

  

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