Friday 6 July 2012

Cascading waterfalls

My kids are always up for some water play even in the dead of winter. I use warm water in winter so they don't get too cold too quickly! We thought it would be fun to create some cascading waterfalls in the backyard. 

I raided the kitchen cupboards and came back with a selection of plastic/metal bowls; plastic plates; a plastic chopping board; a metal colander; my trusty kitchen tray for the base and two plastic water jugs.


Cakey loves to build towers so she set to work on balancing the plates and bowls on top of each other. It took her a number of attempts (and some frustration) to create a stable tower. The flat plates/chopping board were really useful as they became stable bases on which to stack the upside down bowls.


Once we had a stable tower I gave each girl a jug of warm water coloured with food colouring. They poured the water on top of the tower over and over again.... until the tower was bumped and fell down. Cakey built many towers while I attempted to stop Boo from knocking them over.

Hmmmm, yellow was a good choice, don't you think? :)
The waterfalls were much more effective when the colander goes on last. Bowls tend to slip off the top during enthusiastic water pouring!

This one is is about to fall over!!
The food colouring made it easier to watch the water cascading down. We also got some great colour mixing happening.


This was a fun activity and definitely one we will be doing again in the warmer months.

If this is your first visit to at home with Ali – welcome. If you like it, you can follow along through our facebook page or subscribe via email or RSS. Cheers Ali

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18 comments:

  1. Simple but fun (again!). I'm pretty sure I have 2 kids that would enjoy this as well. Thanks for sharing xxx

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    1. Thank you, it was great fun and combined two activities into one - building towers and water play.

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  2. What a fun idea! We've been looking for new ways to play with water outside, since it's been soo hot! Thanks for the inspiration!

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  3. This looks like WAY too much fun! I can't wait to try it.

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  4. oooh I wanna come play at your house!!!!

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  5. That is super fun!!! My son will love this! He loves washing his hands, because it usually turns into a 15 minute play session :-)

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  6. We will definitely have to give this one a try! I love that you use warm water!
    Miss Daisy has been LOVING helping me with the dishes of late! Helps me to know where she is while I wash up and she thinks it's great fun! :)

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  7. What a great idea! We are still playing with water in the cold too....it's only a change of clothes!Your pics just scream fun!!!off to pin to my toddler board now!

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  8. This looks like so much fun! I love how you have used coloured (and warm) water - awesome!! And such a clever girl making those towers.....Love it!!

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  9. Ali this is beyond cool! So much fun. We love water play and we'll definitely be giving this a try.

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  10. That looks like so much fun!

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  11. My goodness, this looks like brilliant fun!

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  12. What a cool idea! Pinning. And we have that same colander, in blue, haha :) And, with the coloured water, you could always add colour mixing as another focus and area of learning. Fabulous :)

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  13. That looks like a blast! Oh, how I wish we had a yard to play in. Pinned it for when we do! :)

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  14. This is super cool, I love the visual effect of the coloured water running down the towers!

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  15. Just popping back to say I'm featuring this on my blog today as one of my faves from last weeks Weekly Kid's Co-op linky!

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