By Mette Buchreitz

Push a toothstick through the sail.
Put a small lump of playdough in the bottom of each boat and insert a toothstick mast into each one.
The boats are ready for the game!

You may now explain (by drawing or showing a picture) that Columbus' ships actually had two large square sails (a foresail and a mainsail); there was a smaller, triangular sail at the rear, called "lateen", and other smaller sails.

How to play:

When each child has prepared his/her little boat, then divide them into groups of three children. The classroom or corridor is now the ocean and you can draw on the floor two lines: on one side you have Spain/Europe, on the other America.
If you haven't got the egg cartons, the children may draw their ships and cut them out.

The children put their boats on the line in Spain and on your "Ready, steady, GO!" they begin to blow on their ships in order to "discover" America.

The winner is the one who first arrives to America. Give medals to all three children.

To elder children you can also try to play the game on a large wall world-map which you put on the floor, but oviously they have lesser space to move, but that can make the game different and funnier!