We’ve made several renditions of these little walnut shell boats over the past couple of years and they’re always a hit in our house! We use materials we have lying around the house — sticks, scrap fabric and a batch of salt dough that we usually have sitting in our fridge. You can make different variations of these depending on whatever materials you already have at home! If you don’t have walnuts, use shells from any nuts that you have. Try substituting a leaf for the sail! This is an easy craft that even younger children can make on their own. They provide a great learning opportunity to talk about density and how it determines if the boat will sink or float.

Materials:

– walnut shell halves
– thin sticks or toothpicks
– small pieces of fabric (I’m using scraps of leftover linen)
– homemade salt dough/play dough, air dry clay or modeling beeswax
– fabric glue or school glue

Instructions for making walnut shell sail boats:

Step 1: Gather your materials

Refer to this post for instructions on how to open walnuts without a nutcracker. The basic recipe that I use for making salt dough can be found in this post. We’re using a batch that has dried flowers mixed in because that’s what we have currently. Modeling beeswax also works very well.

Step 2: How to create the sail and attach it

Cut triangle shapes out of your fabric for the sails. Ours measure about 1.25” including the end that gets folded around the stick. Glue the larger end around the stick to form the sail and let dry. Fabric glue works best but school glue will work as well. Add a small ball of salt dough/play dough, air dry clay or modeling beeswax inside each shell to hold up the sail. You want to add enough to hold the sail up without adding too much weight.

How to play with the walnut sail boats

Fill a bowl or container with water. Move the boats around by tapping them lightly or blowing on them to mimic wind. We had fun by racing ours from one end to the other and we also talked about how the amount of weight added determined if the boats would sink or float.