Last weekend we made apple boats. The setting was beautiful as it was at a stately home in the heart of the UK countryside. It was a lovely Autumn day so it was the perfect activity for getting out and about. There were so many apples to try and activities to do. Our favourite by far was making Apple Boats!
How To Make Apple Boats
While we were there we made apple boats in the orchard.
The girls loved this and it was a wonderful way to combine learning about apples, crafting and outdoor water play.
They were also really simple to make and put together.
You Will Need
- Trays of water
- Good sized apples that are solid
- Knife
- Card
- Colouring pencils or other decorating materials
- Wooden BBQ skewers
The other thing I liked about this activity was you can make the sails as complicated or simple as you like.
Making Apple Boats
Instructions
- Cut the apple in half
- Put the skewer in the middle of the apple
- Cut out the sail
- Decorate the sail
You can also cut out the middle of the apple but you don’t need to do this to make the boat float.
The girls enjoyed making their apple boats but they really loved sailing them. This would be a lovely set up in a garden or a play area.
You could try different fruit to see which float. It would be a great activity to go with a floating and sinking learning unit.
This is definitely something we would do again.
Apple based sailing vessels are so simple and fun.
Finally, you can have a race to see whose boat goes the fastest.
This definitely goes down as one of my favourite seasonal activities.
STEAM Idea
The science behind the experiment is simple.
Apples float because they are buoyant in water. Roughly 25% of an apple’s volume is air. This means apples don’t sink as they are less dense than water. That’s what makes them awesome boats!
For more ideas about teaching kids about buoyancy check out Sciencing’s article on buoyancy – How to Teach Buoyancy to Grade School Children
