Make a Paper Origami Boat

On our trip to the Nature Center the other day, we took along an array of boats to play with. One was a simple stick raft and another was a beautiful watercolor paper origami boat that Kitty made.

She loves to paint and I am always in awe of how pretty her watercolors are. Here is a link to the Wet-on-wet Waldorf watercolor painting technique.

When her paining had dried, we filled an old yogurt cup with vegetable oil and Teddy painted it onto her watercolor, letting it sink into the porous paper.

 We left it to sink in for an hour and then rubbed it clean with a paper towel. Then Kitty folded it into a paper boat. She loves origami and I can’t imagine how she remembers all the steps to all the paper goodies she makes.

Halfway through the boat-making process, she declared that if it was a hat we wanted… Voila!

Here are directions to how to fold an origami paper boat… Origami Boat.

It was a great experiment to see if it would float. Teddy was sure the paper would get soggy and sink but Kitty was hopeful our oil treatment could have made the paper waterproof…

Voila! It was wonderfully waterproof.

A long stick to push it around and they played for ages while I sat on a fallen log and delighted in their joyous simple play.

It was a very pretty boat in it’s pastel blue and yellow and pink.


Alas, after about an hour, it did get soggy and started to fall apart. Kitty decided that next time, we would seal the folds with beeswax… what a great idea!

Blessings and magic,
Donni

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11 Responses

  1. I really love this post, and your comments at the end are spot on, Donni. Until our children understand the most basic principles of how things work, they cannot begin to understand ‘why’ things work. Learning the basics through their own experimentation and observation gives our children a strong foundation to build upon.

    Take it from a Mama who knows… my son started with hand-made boats, moved to remote-control cars and is on the verge of entering college to begin designing high performance engines!

    Beautiful post, Donni…brought a tear to my eye once again!!

  2. These stay quite waterproof if you dip them in melted beeswax. We did some when we were dipping Autumn leaves to preserve the colour, and the result was a sturdy waterproof boat that lasted at least a week of bathtimes. (with two boys, that is quite an achievement for a paper boat!)

  3. Attaching a string to the end is fun too! Love your boat colours.
    I can’t leave a comment from my worpress identity – it won’t accept the coded words if I do :-(

  4. The veggie oil is such a great idea! I’m loving lots of your ideas, and am currently searching for craft ideas for a craft class I’m teaching at our homeschool co-op, and found your blog. Thanks for the inspiration!

  5. Pingback: origami magic boat

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