DIY Water Wall

When it comes to fun kids summer activities, you just can’t beat outdoor water play ideas.

You can easily mix the fun of water with learning in this fun STEM activity, where the kids will be learning while making a DIY water wall that can be used all summer.

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The kids will have fun creating their very own water wall for hours of water play this summer.

For more fun ideas, check out these backyard summer activities.  

DIY Water Wall

Materials Needed:

• Large basin or shallow storage container to hold water
• Plenty of plastic bottles, milk jugs, etc.
• Wire Ties (sometimes called cable ties)
• Scissors

We built our water wall on the fence that surrounds our outdoor play area.  If you don’t have a fence, the back of a few old lawn chairs with fabric/plastic strip backs you can hook things to might work.

I put our plastic storage container at the bottom of the fence and explained to the kids that we were going to use our recyclables to make waterfalls, all directing the water back into the plastic storage container at the bottom.

I used scissors to cut the bottom off of each bottle and milk jug.  Then they took turns deciding which plastic bottle to add where, using the wire ties to secure them into place on the fence.

We experimented with how each bottle needed to be angled, pouring water into the top container and seeing how it flowed so we could angle the next container just right to catch it.

We also decided to try using a hollow pool noodle, sticking the mouth of one of our water bottles into its end.

When it was finished they had tons of fun filling the top containers and watching the water flow!

For a bit of added fun I brought out some water, mixed with pink and blue food coloring, and let them watch the colored water go through the maze of bottles and mix at the end.

This simple water wall activity kept them busy for almost 2 hours!

If you look closely enough at that last picture you’ll notice a few Squinkies that came out to play.  The kids had a blast pouring the Squinkies down the water wall along with the water.  For a while it was a giant Squinkies water slide!

If you are able to set up the water wall on a fence you can leave it up for easy water play all summer long.  

For more summer fun:

• 20 Ways Kids Can Stay Cool with Ice
• Backyard Summer Camp Ideas
• Duct Tape Water Bottle Holder (perfect for getting kids to carry and drink more water this summer)

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