You can bring the Super Simple Song ‘A Sailor Went To Sea’ to life with this crafty DIY play set! Use our free printable to include all the animals from the song, and follow along as you sing! Let’s go to sea and see what we can see see see!
Things You’ll Need
- A Sailor Went To Sea Play Set printable
- Paper straws – you’ll need 7 total, alternatively you can use popsicle sticks for the animal puppets.
- Paintbrush
- Cereal box
- Craft paint
- Construction paper
- Pipe cleaner
- Blue masking tape – or regular masking tape that you can paint over.
- Pencil
- Scissors
- Craft knife
- Glue stick
Make the box!
Draw a large rectangle on one side of the cereal box, ;eaving some space around the edges to keep it sturdy, and cut it out.
Glue and tape the ends of your cereal box shut. Add tape around the edge to cover up the sides of the box.
Draw a slot at the bottom of the box. This is where the underwater animal puppets will slide through! Cut it out carefully with a craft knife.
Squeeze come light, medium, and dark blue paint into the box and paint from side to side to create an ombre, underwater effect. Squeeze the dark blue paint towards the bottom of the box (where the slot is) and the lighter blue paint near the top. This will help show the depth of the deep blue sea!
Trace your cereal box onto a piece of construction paper and draw wavy edges around the shape. Draw a smaller wavy rectangle within the traced shape and cut out both with scissors. This will cover the front edges of your cereal box.
With a glue stick, glue the cut out onto the front of the box.
Print and cut out the images from the A Sailor Went To Sea Play Set printable. Glue the ship onto the top front of the box with a glue stick. Fold the tabs below the island cut outs and glue them to the top of the box. Glue the coral cut outs both inside and outside the box to decorate it.
Use a marker to draw some waves on the outside of your box.
Make the aquascope!
The aquascope is what the sailor uses to look down into the deep blue sea!
To make the aquascope, cut both ends of a paper straw at a 45-degree angle, keeping the cut pieces. Push a pipe cleaner through the straw so the pipe cleaner sticks out both ends. String one of the cut pieces of straw onto an end of the pipe cleaner, folding extra pipe cleaner back into the straw so the cut piece stays at a 90-degree angle. Make a hole on the top of the cereal box with a craft knife and stick the straight end of the straw through it. You can wiggle the hole a little bigger with a pencil if you need to. Then do the same thing to the straight end of the straw, stringing the other piece of cut straw onto the end of the pipe cleaner, folding extra pipe cleaner back into the straw.
Now you should have a straw with two 90-degree angles on either side – your aquascope!
Finish the play set!
Glue the cut out sea creatures onto the tips of paper straws. Pinch the top of the straw flat to make more gluing surface. You can also use long popsicle sticks if you don’t have straws!
Put the sea creature through the slot at the bottom so they can swim in the deep blue sea, and the sailor can see them! Listen to the song A Sailor Went To Sea and play along as you sing!
There is so much to explore under the sea! Have fun, sailors!
Find more great content and activity ideas with underwater animals on our Sea Creatures theme page!
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