This is a sneek preview of an activity which will pop up at Happymess at some point over the summer - our first homemade water wall! My daughter, who is normally fairly reserved in her praise of me, called me a 'genius mummy' when she first saw this. She also said it's 'pretty cool', that she 'loves it' and that she'll 'play with it for 28 days'. A definite win for me - it put me firmly in her good books, and she has indeed spent a lot of time playing with it so far. She likes to quickly pour water down each of the pipes, so it's pouring out of each of the receptacles at the bottom at the same time. She loves playing with water anyway - and this wall fits in nicely with the pouring and decanting games she would naturally play with a basin of water. I think she also likes that it's a little too high for her brother to reach the top of - but that's ok with him because he's been busy with his current obsession - watering cans - which ties in nicely with the water play.
To make your own water wall:
Buy some pegboard/perforated hardboard (thin board with holes in it) from a timber merchant. If you are local to Bristol we bought ours from Robbins Timber in Ashton Vale - they were extremely pleasant, cut it to size and carried it to the car when I turned up to pick it up with two children. I bought the pipes and the blue funnels from the Children's Scrapstore (just about my favourite place in Bristol). Everything else I had at home - you can just use whatever bottles/tubs you have in your recycling. I made some holes in the bottom of an ice cream tub with sharp scissors to create a sprinkler effect, and cut up two bottles to go at the end of the other pipes. I fastened everything to the pegboard with cable ties. I balance it on an underbed storage box and have tied it to the back of a garden chair to make it a bit sturdier. This was pretty quick to make considering the amount of use I think it will get over the summer, and it's going to be easy to upgrade and change round in the future too.
See it in action:
My daughter has been watching lots of Frozen Playdoh demo videos on YouTube recently (yes, quite niche but they do exist) so she was really keen for me to make a video of her playing with the water wall, in the same style. Hopefully this video is less grating than the Frozen Playdoh ones - it definitely shows her enthusiasm!
Buy some pegboard/perforated hardboard (thin board with holes in it) from a timber merchant. If you are local to Bristol we bought ours from Robbins Timber in Ashton Vale - they were extremely pleasant, cut it to size and carried it to the car when I turned up to pick it up with two children. I bought the pipes and the blue funnels from the Children's Scrapstore (just about my favourite place in Bristol). Everything else I had at home - you can just use whatever bottles/tubs you have in your recycling. I made some holes in the bottom of an ice cream tub with sharp scissors to create a sprinkler effect, and cut up two bottles to go at the end of the other pipes. I fastened everything to the pegboard with cable ties. I balance it on an underbed storage box and have tied it to the back of a garden chair to make it a bit sturdier. This was pretty quick to make considering the amount of use I think it will get over the summer, and it's going to be easy to upgrade and change round in the future too.
See it in action:
My daughter has been watching lots of Frozen Playdoh demo videos on YouTube recently (yes, quite niche but they do exist) so she was really keen for me to make a video of her playing with the water wall, in the same style. Hopefully this video is less grating than the Frozen Playdoh ones - it definitely shows her enthusiasm!
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