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The Raft Craft: Storybook STEM

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 Have you ever read the book The Raft by Jim LeMarche?  It is such a wonderful summer themed book and one I love to read to my kids.  If you haven’t read it yet, you should find it at your library.  We made a raft craft to go along with the book.  This is a fun storybook STEM project. We are excited to take them over to our pond this week and sail them!

Storybook STEM: Summer Book and Craft- The Raft

 

The Raft is about a boy who goes to stay with his grandma for the summer. He isn’t very happy about it, though.  She lives in the woods and spends a lot of time on the river. He is a little worried because she doesn’t have a television so he doesn’t know how he will keep busy all summer long.  His grandma sends him out to fish and he discovers a raft with drawings of animals all over it. He learns to love fishing and playing out on the river and ends up spending most of the summer there. He and his grandma spend time together on the river. He learns that his grandma draws the animals on the raft when she sees different animals she draws them on the raft. At the end, he even gets to draw an animal on the raft. It is a lovely story!

 

How to Make the Raft Craft:

 

Raft Engineering project for kids

 

My kids really loved this book and were excited to make a little raft craft to go along with it. We made the rafts out of jumbo craft sticks.  To make a raft with a sail, you need 19 craft sticks. We made one with a sail and one without.

build a raft from popsicle sticks

Glue the sticks together like the picture above.

raft sail

To make the sail, make a T with three sticks and glue the T top down onto the raft.  Make a paper sail and glue it on after the other part is dry and secure.

 My son wanted to make his look just like the one in the book, so he drew some of his favorite animals on it. I love it!  It’s so creative. 🙂

The Raft craft- storybook engineering STEM

 

Check out some more summer book ideas from the iHN by clicking the image below.

BookBigIdeaSummer

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