Homemade Toy Rubber Band Boats

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There is nothing more fun than a little toy boat that actually moves in water. Today I want to show you how to make some homemade rubber band boats.

This week for the Weekly Virtual Book Club for kids, the theme is boats. The book this week that we are focusing on is Toy Boat by Randall de Save. It is an adorable book!  My little son loved it and couldn’t WAIT to make his own toy boats.

This boat toy is different than the boat in the story, but we had so much fun making our rubber band boats and watching them go around the bath tub. We want to try them out in a pool or pond and do some serious races!

How to Make the Rubber Band Boats:

You will need some cardboard, scissors, a marker, colored duct tape, and rubber bands. Easy supply list, right?  Hopefully you already have these things on hand. It’s fun to make them in a variety of colors.

Draw your boat shape on the cardboard similar to the above image. It looks like a little house and a door. Save the square you cut out to use as the paddle.

You will need to cut the square smaller on all sides so it will easily flip around inside the boat. Keep in mind that you will be coving them with tape, so the width will grow again!

We had to trim a few of our paddles again after we wrapped them with tape. Cover the entire boats and paddle pieces with tape making sure to cover all edges, too. If water gets inside, they get soggy really quickly!

Put a rubber band around the boat and place the paddle piece between the rubber band. Twist it up. You will need to twist going away from the boat or the boat moves backwards.

Now let them go in your tub!  We made a few because the kids wanted to all have their own favorite colors to play with and we needed to have some boat races, of course!

Watch Them Go!

Check out a few other related activities we have done:

Submarine Science
Raft Craft
Magnet Boats

And see ALL of our Book Activities for Kids.

This is part of the Virtual Book Club for Kids. Join in the discussion and ideas in the Facebook group!

See what the other participating bloggers have done with the boat theme:

Fishing for Letters (with a FREE printable) – Preschool Powol Packets
How to Make a Boat with Recycled Materials– JDaniel4’s Mom
Geometric Shapes boat– Mama Smiles
Boat Building Shape STEM Challenge – Rainy Day Mum
Paint Resist Toy Boat Art Project– The Educator’s Spin on It
Floating Foil Boat Experiment– Messy Little Monsters