Finally we made a Water Structure

(Goblin is 31 months)

Ever since I saw a post on Sun Hats and Wellie Boots over a year ago about water construction I have been wanting to make Goblin a water structure. It took me a while to figure out the best way to do it. I didn't want to attach things to the fence like they had in the Sun Hats and Wellie Boots post because I thought that thumb tacks wouldn't be strong enough to stand up to Goblin and water onslaught, and if I had to use something more industrial I didn't want to make holes in our fence. So about a year ago I purchased a large sheet of MDF and some nuts and bolts. These then sat in our shed for an entire year with me procrastinating. Finally on the first sunny weekend of this month I decided to crack on with making the water structure. So I took the MDF out of the shed and leaned it up against the wall of the house ..... where it sat for another week. Then Hublet offered to drill some holes in it.

Now before anyone gets up in arms about me letting down the sisterhood by not wielding the power tool myself let me explain. I am not diminishing my power as an independent woman if I choose to defer to someone else who I know will do a better job than me, not because they are a man, but because I am really bad at using drills - as illustrated by the many random holes in the walls of our house where I have tried to hang things and Hublet has had to rescue the wall before it disintegrates any further. Another reason I let Hublet do it was that had I not, the MDF would probably be sitting there this time next year.
I hope that Goblin will not take from this experience that "woman cannot use drills" but simply that "Mummy cannot be trusted with drills" - hopefully he will also take that a caring partner helps their other half out of kindness.

After Hublet drilled many randomly placed holes in the board I painted a rainbow on it with lots of little tester pots. And placed bolts through each of the holes. 

Also sitting in my shed since last year was a choice selection of different sized and shaped plastic bottles that I rescued from the recycling. I cut large holes in the top or sides of these and positioned them down the board. Where the sides lined up with the bolts I marked it with a permanent marker and then took a craft knife and cut an x. Then I slotted the protruding bolts through the x on each bottle and added a washer and nut to affix the plastic bottles to the board.
Here is a little tip if you are trying this at home. Start from the bottom up. I started from the top down and sometimes I needed to move one bottle so I could get my hand deep enough into the next to attach the nut and washer. Also don't make the board too much higher than your child because they need to pour water in from the top and if they need to climb more than one step it adds to the danger factor - especially where there is water making everything a bit slippery.

I laid out a really simple path for the water as this was our first experimental try with a water structure. But the idea is that with the random bolts all over the board we should be able to make new and different paths on a regular basis to change things up. I want to try one next time that has two routes running simultaneously.

Goblin was suitably impressed with Hublet and my joint effort. He played contentedly with the water structure for some time and was very interested by the path of the water and the fact that he could put it in the top and collect it at the bottom.

 I will be sharing this on