Time: at least 10 minutes
Equipment: Pool noodles, wooden skewers, craft foam, a ‘body of water’
Purpose/Topic: To explore floatation
AoPG: Intellectual, Physical
Ahead of time, cut the pool noodles into pieces 10 cm long. Cut a variety of large triangles from the pieces of craft foam.
Give each Joey Scout a couple of pieces of pool noodle, a couple of skewers and at least one triangle of craft foam. Give the Joey Scouts time to construct a boat from the pieces. Ideally, they should have a chance to test their boats (in the body of water), and revise their designs.
As a follow-up, get the Joey Scouts to pair up and combine their boats to make one.
Time: 20 minutes
Equipment: 4 pipe-cleaners, 2 feathers, 1 stick for each Joey
Purpose/Topic: Maritime history and traditions
AoPG: Physical, Character
Begin with one pipe-cleaner (silver in the above pictures). Fold it in half. This point will be the beak of the parrot. Wrap each of the sides around your finger, symmetrically, then do a final wrap on each side to cross back to the centre. This is the remainder of the head.
Bend a second pipe-cleaner at the mid-point (green). Place it through the final cross at the bottom of the head. Bend a third pipe-cleaner one-third of the way along (purple). Place it at right angles to the second pipe-cleaner, just under the head, so that the longer side will form the back. Twist the second pipe-cleaner to fix the second and third pipe-cleaners to the head. Form these 4 halves in a body-like shape, and twist together at the shortest point with a couple of feathers.
Fold the fourth pipe-cleaner in half (blue), and wind around the bottom of the body. Wind the bottom ends around the stick (or a finger) to form the feet.
Time: at least 10 minutes
Equipment: large rectangles of paper (newspaper size), copies of instructions
Purpose/Topic: Maritime history and tradition
AoPG: Physical
With paper in portrait orientation, fold in half, top to bottom. Fold again left to right, just creasing at the top. Unfold.
Fold the top corners down from the centre crease.
Fold the upper bottom edge of the paper up, turn the hat over and fold the other bottom edge of the paper up.
Use your fingers to open it up into a hat.
Time: 10 minutes
Equipment: small squares or rectangles of paper (A5 or A6), copies of instructions (choose one from this link), a ‘body of water’
Purpose/Topic: To explore floatation
AoPG: Intellectual, Physical
Follow the instructions you chose. Play with the boats in the water.
Time: at least 10 minutes
Equipment: 1 litre milk cartons, box-cutter, wool, duct tape, hole saw discs, dowel (same diameter as the centre of the hole saw discs), glue, square of paper, hole punch, a ‘body of water’
Purpose/Topic: To explore floatation
AoPG: Intellectual, Physical
Before the activity, wash the cartons well, then use the box-cutter to remove most of one face of one milk carton for each Joey Scout. Choose the ‘top face’ if the carton is laid to have a bow. Cut the wool into metre lengths. Cut the dowel into 30 centimetre lengths. Insert a dowel into each disc and glue in place.
Give each Joey Scout a milk carton, and a piece of wool. They should tie the wool through the open spout, then tape it up. Glue a disc/dowel piece into the centre of the carton, to form the mast.
Each Joey Scout should decorate a piece of paper to form the sail. Bend in half (don’t crease) from top to bottom, and use the hole punch to punch a hole in the centre of the top and bottom. Unbend, and slide holes over the mast.
Sail on the body of water. Depending on the glue, you may need to leave this stage for another day.
Time: at least 20 minutes
Equipment: garbage bag; 2 garden canes; sticky tape; light string; fishing line
Purpose/Topic: Weather—Winds
AoPG: Physical, Intellectual
Diagram and instructions in Mob Programming book, page 41.
Time: 20 minutes
Equipment: Cuttlefish; Inspiration Viking images; carving tools (eg bobby pins, paperclips, toothpicks)
Purpose/Topic: Nautical history and Tradition
AoPG: Physical, Intellectual
Show the Joey Scouts a selection of inspiration images. Show them different ways of marking the cuttlefish. Allow them to carve a design of their own choice on the cuttlefish. (It won’t necessarily bear any resemblance to the inspiration designs! That’s ok!)
A Little Blue Book 
