Boat Races

“First the worst, second the best, third the ugly princess….”

My ears ring to the constant cries of “It’s Not Fair!” and there is already a bit of competitiveness between the three big kids in our family. Who is the best at this, who should get more of that, who should go first at this, who came last at that. The addition of this lovely little rhyme that recently came home from school did not improve the situation. So I’ve been making a conscious effort to try and realign our ideas on competition and encourage the positives of joining in, doing your best and having fun, rather than worrying about who is first, second, or worse, ugly!

When the sun finally came out after days of rain I asked the big kids if they’d like to make boats to race down the raging river of our drive way. They were very keen!

There was much discussion about how to make a boat that would float the best and go the fastest. Of course the girls thought that their boats would win, because they were much better than their brother at making boats. Muski was unperturbed, he went for a boat with a square sail and high sides, ignoring his sisters comments that it would surely ‘drown’.

There was a lot of shouting as we ran along side the little boats zooming down the side of the drive way. Zoe’s boat tipped over and needed a new sail, and Muski’s boat was slow but certainly not ‘drowning’. Izzy’s boat was in the lead, way out in front, flying along. Zoe’s boat (helped by a little bit of ‘I need to make up time because of my broken sail’ type cheating) was beginning to catch up, and Muki’s boat lost it’s mast and sail completely, but still soldiered on.

Izzy started celebrating her win way before her boat was even close to the gate, but had to eat her words when it hit a snag and went under completely. Zoe just couldn’t keep her cheating fingers away from her boat and ended up capsizing it with her efforts. Muski’s boat sailed past them both, down a treacherous waterfall, and on to cross the finish line first with all of us cheering it on!

As we walked back up the drive way to start all over again Izzy said…
“That was so much fun…. even if I didn’t win. It doesn’t matter about winning when you are having fun.”

And with that the ‘Ugly Princess’ was gone… at least for a little while.

This activity was inspired by a trip to the movies to see Tangled in 3D. It was such a great movie and is now one of our all time favourites.

What’s your favourite Disney movie?