With summer officially here, it’s time to get out in the backyard for water play! We have so many ideas for this summer, but I started things off with a simple game for Veronika today, an idea originally spotted at Reading Confetti.

First I needed to make the boats; freeze water in the compartments of an ice cube tray, adding food coloring if desired. When the ice has just started to set, insert a toothpick into the center of each cube to be the boat’s mast.

Once the cubes were set, I cut triangles from construction paper, and taped these to the masts for the sails.

Veronika immediately loved these little boats, and might have been happy just to play with them, but now we needed a river!

Take a long piece of aluminum foil and curl up both sides to form a channel down the middle. If you want to have a constant running river, you can start the garden hose and simply set place at one end of the foil.

Veronika loves to pour from our watering can, though, so I decided to let her play the role of Mother Nature and add more water whenever the river ran dry. I set up the foil on a slightly sloped section of lawn, so as soon as the ice boats were in the water, they slipped “downstream”.

Veronika loved watching the boats move faster and further every time she poured in more water!

Of course this being summer, the ice bots didn’t last long. But even once the boats had melted away, she loved adding more water and playing with leftover masts and sails in the river. Your kids might want to set nature treasures afloat, too!