When the 3 year old asks "Pa-Pa when can I make a boat?"  You got to come up with something.  We even convinced Grandma to let him destroy one of her paint brushes.

I built the "kit" out of two pieces of 2x4 cut out on the band saw.  I cut a short dowel to serve as a smoke stack and a way for him to attach the parts by pounding it into a pre-drilled hole.  You may notice in the second picture we had a lot of glue, but he felt it was needed to keep it together.  In the last picture he had just said to Grandma,

"Isn't it just beautiful Grandma?"