If your kids love science activities and waterplay, they’re going to love this. It’s the perfect combination of both! They’ll be cool and entertained for hours in the back yard with this simple water bin with tubes and funnels.
We have lots of great water play ideas here among the pages of my blog. Water bins are one of my absolute favourite, warm-weather activities for toddlers and preschoolers. They’re easy and inexpensive to set up, and they always keep the hooligans entertained for hours.
Last fall, the hooligans really enjoyed an activity that I set up on the fence with funnels and tubes. They poured corn kernels and chestnuts through the tubes for days.
Now that the weather is warm again, I thought it would be fun to set up a tube and funnel activity with water.
Yesterday I dug through my husband’s stash of plumbing supplies, and collected some pieces of pvc pipe. The hooligans were playing with a bin of coloured water, so I added the pies and some funnels to the bin to see what they would do with them.
They were thrilled, and got straight to work.
I wasn’t sure how long it would hold their attention for. After all, it wasn’t terribly exciting, but I’m not kidding you, my toddlers and preschoolers played at this water station for an hour and a half this morning.
This would be a terrific water table activity, but we don’t have a water table, so we make our own! I set up a make-shift arrangement of storage containers set on top of stools, benches and over-turned containers. Hey, it’s cheap, and it works!
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 our water play, everyone was soaked, and they’d 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 a simple, inexpensive water play activity can keep them learning, laughing, and experimenting for so long.
More Fun Activities for Toddlers and Preschoolers:
Playing with Coloured Water: Backyard Activity for Kids
Dino Dig – Melting Ice with Salt and Water
Frozen Fractals Ice Sculptures Activity for Kids
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Jackie is a mom, wife, home daycare provider, and the creative spirit behind Happy Hooligans. She specializes in kids’ crafts and activities, easy recipes, and parenting. She began blogging in 2011, and today, Happy Hooligans inspires more than 2 million parents, caregivers and Early Years Professionals all over the globe.
Jessica L.
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. 🙂
happyhooligans
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!
Eddie
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!
happyhooligans
Oooo, this would be great in the wading pool!
Ali Wright (@athomewithali)
I love those pipes and how the kids can put them together and experiment. Fab photos too.
happyhooligans
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!
Hannah Harris
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!
happyhooligans
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!
crystal@growingajeweledrose
So fun! What lucky little hooligans you have!
happyhooligans
Thanks, Crystal! They do have fun, don’t they? 🙂
mrspinksocks
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!
happyhooligans
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. 😛
kmac
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
happyhooligans
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.
maryanne @ mama smiles
Such a fantastic idea! The food coloring in the water is the perfect touch, too 🙂
Linda Tandy
Jackie,
Yet another awesome idea.
I’m going to have to STOP looking on your site because now I have sooo many ideas and not enough hours in the day to do everything I find!
Aabir
I love your blog!! Learning a lot from you. Thanks for sharing
happyhooligans
Thank you, Aabir! I’m glad you’re enjoying my posts!
Payal Shah
Its an awsome fun with funnels n other water play props..I did it with my school kids…they had a blast..
Ali Blyth elliot
I used to run a preschool and a water table was out everyday, it was always popular. I live the idea with all the pipes, I’ll do that with my young son, he will love it!!!! I used food colouring a lot too, a favourite was when we filled latex gloves with coloured water and froze them overnight before dropping then into the water tray!!!!
marge
My 11 year old granddaughter loves your website. We found her in the kitchen blowing bubbles with paper towel tubes.