Our Water Week in Pictures

Last week was Water Week at our preschool bridge camp.  Here are some of the fun things we did:

Bubble Snakes ... These snakes were really fun (although I did most of the assembly).  For each child, I cut the bottom off of a water bottle.  I then put a section of a sock over the open end and taped it on with duct tape.  It is very easy to make this with the toe part of a sock (the kids could have done it themselves with a rubber band) but, because I just used small pieces of the sock, I was able to make 37 snake blowers with 3 tube socks. We put dish soap with a little bit of water on trays that the teachers held.  The kids dipped the sock covered end into the soap and then gently blew into the mouth of the bottle. The kids LOVED making long bubble snakes. We only had one child who sucked in a mouthful of soap (or at least only one for whom tasting the bubbles ruined the whole experience).

A Wonderful Water Wall ...it was a favorite activity every day.  Read more about how I made it here.

A drive through bike wash ... rumor had it that "the cleaned bikes went faster! 

Water beads...the kids loved playing with these water beads that I bought in the floral section of  Dollar Tree.  On the last day we were allowed to squish the beads until they broke (also fun).

Cork Boats... We "sailed" our simple cork boats in canals in our sandbox, a little pool, and in plastic gutters. Read more about our cork boats here.

 

It was a great week!

Cork Sailboats

 We made simple cork sailboats last week.

 The kids started by wrapping rubber bands around 2 corks.  They then decorated little sails that we had cut out from construction paper.  We laminated the sails (since we wanted to be able to play with them for several days) and then stuck a long plastic toothpick through the sail and between the two corks.  Simple!

Materials for sailboats...corks, rubberbands, long plastic toothpicks, and crayons for decorating.

The fun began when the children began playing with their sailboats.  Some tested their boats in our little pool,

others worked together to try to make a tin foil river in our sandbox. The river probably suffered from having too many engineers and workers (there were quite a few holes in the foil:).  

That night I went to Home Depot and bought two 10' plastic gutters (they were less that $6 each).  My co-teacher had the same idea and also bought end pieces for the gutter she bought. We put the one with end caps in the sandbox in a ditch that the kids built.  

 We attached the other two together with clips and the kids raced their boats.

It would have worked better if we had a hose.  Instead the kids had to keep bringing the water from the end bin (which was lower) back to the start bin.

This is an assembly line to move the water back to the top bin. :)

The kids were excited to bring their boats home to try them in the tub.

Our WONDERFUL Water Wall

         This week is Water Week at our preschool's bridge camp (an optional program between our school's last day and the local school district's last day).  I have been seeing water walls on Pinterest and really wanted to make one.  I originally planned to use a pegboard but decided to use plexiglass instead because I because I wanted a wall that was very portable and able to handle a lot of kids. I started by going to Home Depot and buying a 36"x 48" sheet of plexiglass, clear plastic tubing, and small nuts and bolts. Because I wanted some color and flexibility I  bought pop tubes from Amazon.  I also collected  the adjustable coat rack that I had bought years ago at Target for my pocket chart, zip ties, lots of different sizes of plastic bottles,  funnels, my hot glue gun,  duck tape and my drill.

        I began by adjusting the coat rack to be the right height.  The plexiglass was slightly wider than coat rack but I decided that that would make the board more sturdy.  I propped the plexiglass next to the coat rack and started drilling holes about 1/2 inch below the top of the plexiglass and zip tied it to the rack.  On the sides I drilled holes on both sides of the rack and then attached it with the zip ties.  The plexiglass is easy to drill (I left the protective plastic on until I was all finished).

Tube wrapping around the edge.

I then just started drilling holes and attaching bottles with the nuts and bolts.  I put holes in the bottles with a punch tool.  I attached the tubes to bottles with hot glue (I just put a lot inside the mouth of the bottle) and then wrapped the connection with duck tape (partly just to add color).  Sometimes I cut holes in the side or bottom of bottles, other times I drilled lots of holes in the bottom. My son got involved at one point and brought up a big drill tip (the kind you use for drilling a hole for a door knob) and we put a hole in the middle so we could have one of the tubes go from one side to the other.  We also put large holes down one side so we could wrap a tube around and edge of the the water wall (and the frame).

I tried to have places that the kids could add water at different heights on the board.  I also made several places where water came together from 2 different places and a few spots where the kids could move a bottle to change the direction of the water. The kids LOVED the wall.

They really loved, loved, loved the wall.  I loved that the kids quickly figured out that they could put a cup under one of the places that water came out to collect water and they worked together to "give" each other water.  It was so much fun to see the little engineers following the paths and "experimenting" over and over! Tomorrow we are going to use colored water for a little color mixing fun.

The total cost of the wall was probably $50 (give or take a few dollars because I had some of the materials around the house).  A pegboard would have been cheaper (the plexiglass was almost $30) but I love the fact that the kids interacted as they used both sides of the plexiglass.  Please let me know if you have any questions.

I'm linking up with 4th Grade Frolics' Monday Made It.