Holiday Preparations

The teddy bears are very excited! They will soon be going on their holidays and will be visiting the seaside, one of their favourite places.

There is usually lots to do at the beach - there are sandcastles to build, rockpools to explore, ice creams to eat, the sea to paddle in and picnics on the sand. But the bears wanted to do more this year.

Scary had promised them that he would show them how to make something to take with them that they could play with at the seaside. He brought out some sheets of coloured foam, some funny-shaped paper templates, a pencil, some scissors, some glue, some lolly sticks and a very scary-looking (not you, Scary!) sharp knife that he kept safely covered.

What on earth could he be going to make?

First of all, he cut out the paper templates, using the scissors. Four of them had numbers on them, from 1 to 4, and the other was marked 'sail'. Was that a clue? The only thing the other bears could think of which would have a sail, would be a boat! Was he making a boat?

Scary placed the template numbered 1 onto a piece of green foam, marked round it with a pencil, then cut it out with the scissors. He did the same for all the other pieces, using a different colour for each. He made sure he marked some of the pieces where it was shown on the templates.

Then he stuck the pieces 1 to 4 together, starting with the biggest at the bottom, and then in size to the smallest at the top.

Then he very carefully cut two slits in the 'sail' piece, and one slit through the four layers stuck together. The other bears were very intrigued - what were the slits for?

Scary then pushed one end of a lolly stick through the slits on the 'sail', and the other end through the slit in the four layers until it just showed about a centimetre.

Then everyone could see what it was! It was a sailing boat!!

Scary said that they could split into twos and each pair could make a sailing boat each to take on holiday with them. Colours were quickly chosen (and argued over!) and pieces cut out, and then a queue for Scary to cut the slits for them. But very soon there were lots of little colourful sailing boats sitting on the table.

"We'll need to know if they float before we go, won't we?" asked Boo. "We don't want to arrive at the beach and find that all our boats just sink!" "Absolutely," replied Scary, "let's get a big bowl of water and try them out!" Which is what they did. They were all very pleased that all the boats were deemed 'seaworthy' (that means that they would float on the water without leaking or sinking).

No-one could wait to go on holiday now! You can read all about how and where they sailed their boats next time. Meanwhile, you could try making your own sailing boats by following the instructions in our YouTube video here. It includes a list of all the materials you will need and the templates to print out and use. Good luck!