Coffee Cups and Crayons

Simple play ideas, learning activities, kids crafts and party ideas, plus acts of kindness for kids!

STEM for Kids: Build a Paddle Boat

STEM activities for kids that involve water, like this DIY plastic paddle boat, are always a hit. After we learned how to build a paddle boat, we had fun testing it out in an inflatable pool in our backyard. You could easily experiment with your paddle boat in a bathtub or water table inside your house. This is one of those science for kids explorations that could be done inside or outside.
 
Science for Kids--Build a Paddle Boat! Try it indoors or out for some fun STEM learning.

Paddle Boat STEM Activity

  • Plastic Bottle (We used a plastic bottle that had four flat sides.)
  • Two Wooden Chopsticks
  • Plastic Milk Jug
  • Scissors
  • Duct Tape
  • Rubber band (We used a thick medium sized rubber band)
  • Ruler
  • Pencil
  • Packing Tape
Science for Kids Building a Paddle Boat Paddle

Build a Paddle Boat

Cut out four rectangular pieces out of the plastic milk jug. The pieces need to be 2 inches by 3 inches long. You will want to use a pencil to draw your squares onto the milk jug. That will help you cut out rectangles with straight sides. The pencil lines will be easy to erase once you have cut out your rectangles.

Each of the rectangles will then be folded in half. You will then duct tape one side a rectangle to the side of another rectangle to create a cross shape. You could create the cross shape and then tape the sides together. We found that taping one set of sides at a time worked for us.

 
Science for Kids Building a Paddle Boat Minus Paddle

Now you will be attaching the chopsticks to opposite sides of the bottle. You will attach the chopsticks about ¾ of the way down the bottle with packing tape. You will want at least 3 or 4 inches of each of the chopsticks to hang off the back of the bottle. When you have the chopsticks right where you want them to be, you will wrap duct tape around the area where the strapping tape is.

Science for Kids Building a Paddle Boat

Attach the rubber band to the chopsticks. It should fit perfectly. You don’t want it to be stretched out.

Finally you slide two blades of the paddle through the rubber band.

 
Science for Kids Building a Paddle Boat Water time

Science for Kids- Things to Observe

  • See if winding the paddle forward makes it go forward.
  • See if winding the paddle backwards makes it backward.
  • See if moving the rubber band closer to the boat makes a difference it how it moves.
  • See how many times you can wind up the paddle in the rubber band.  Decide if it makes a difference in how long it moves.

Science for Kids Building a Paddle Boat Facebook

Don’t let the fun and discovery stop there!

We have TONS of science experiments your kids will love on our Super Cool Science Experiments for Kids page! 

The most fun science experiments for kids ever!

Take me to the experiments –> Super Cool Science Experiments for Kids

About Megan Sheakoski

Megan is the creator of Coffee Cups and Crayons, a blog full of simple fun and learning. She believes that kids’ activities don’t have to be complicated to be fun and that learning is better with play.

Comments

  2. S Johnson says

    Awesome post. I plan on building one for my nephew and niece later today.

    Just a hint though, for a faster boat, use a coke bottle or something with “more rounded” edges.

    Keep up the good work tho!

    Reply

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