We’re enjoying another gorgeous day here today, so we spent the morning splashing about and constructing some waterworks, keeping cool under the trees.
Yesterday I dug through my husband’s stash of plumbing supplies, and collected a few bits and pieces, and added them to the bin of water that the Hooligans were playing in, to see if anyone was interested in them.
Today, I decided to take it up a notch.
I set up a water station specifically for these plumbing pieces: I filled a clear storage bin with red water, and another couple of big bowls with coloured water. I added clear cups for pouring, and a few funnels to make things a little more interesting. I really didn’t know if it would hold their attention for long. It certainly didn’t look terribly exciting, but I’m not kidding you, they played at this station for an hour and a half this morning. 
They poured, they colour mixed, they put pieces of pipe together,
they co-operated, and collaborated, working together – one person carefully holding together the multi-pieced contraption that he’d made, and the other pouring the water into it. 
They emptied the big bowls of water into the bin several times, and I kept filling them back up with coloured water.
By the end of it all, they were soaked, and had re-arranged the tables and containers and turned the whole activity into a restaurant.
I love how these simple open-ended play activities get their imaginations working.
And I love that something so simple and inexpensive keeps them learning, laughing, experimenting and having fun.
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You are just fabulous! I love your blog. This looks like so much fun and I know my kids will love it. Definitely going to try it! I can totally see my kids doing this for quite a while too. They’re still dipping into that ocean bin, in fact. I haven’t put it away yet.
Aw, thanks, Jessica.
Isn’t it great that they’re still enjoying the ocean bin? We’re still pulling ours out several times a week along with the construction bin and the baby bath station. We’ve gotten so much mileage out of them!
I love this idea! I’ll have to dig out some of our supplies and let D loose in the wading pool with his buddies!
Oooo, this would be great in the wading pool!
I love those pipes and how the kids can put them together and experiment. Fab photos too.
Thanks, Ali! Yes, I hadn’t though that they would explore them that way, but they had a great time fitting all the different pieces together!
I love this. We do lots of outside water play, but I think adding in some plumbing supplies would mix it up a little so I’ll have to have a trip to the hardware store soon. Your outdoor play ideas are a great inspiration for me as we try to get outside everyday and you always look like you have some much fun, thanks!
Thank you, Hannah! I love knowing that our ideas are inspiring you to do some of the same at your house! Hope you enjoy your waterworks as much as we enjoyed ours!
So fun! What lucky little hooligans you have!
Thanks, Crystal! They do have fun, don’t they?
I cannot wait for our weather to improve so we can try some of these gorgeous ideas! We are making do with rather a lot of puddle jumping recently!
Hope your weather warms up soon, Alisa! I miss puddle jumping! Living on a hill means the rain runs down the street before it ever has the chance to form puddles.
Hi, Love how much you love play.Thank you for posting. What do you use to colour the water with.It doesn’t look like it stains. I am yet to find a colouring that doesn’t. Thanks
Thanks for dropping a line. Sometimes I use regular liquid food colouring, but a lot of the time I use the Wilton icing gels. They come in little pots. Are you finding staining happens at full strength directly out of the container or when mixed with water? I’m not sure if you’re referring to staining on clothing or staining on hands. I believe all food colouring will stain if you get it directly on your clothing, full strength, straight from the container, but when it’s mixed in the water, we don’t experience staining on clothing, dish-cloths or hands. My fingers were stained blue yesterday because I wiped around the edges of the little pots WITH my fingers to clean them up a bit: full on food colouring on my hands, but they were completely clean by the end of the day. The handwashing throughout the day removed all traces of it.
Such a fantastic idea! The food coloring in the water is the perfect touch, too