Constructing the Water Wall

Building your own water wall is SO easy.  And it doesn't have to cost much.  The key ingredient is the plastic guttering.  It's perfect to pour water down, and to direct the water towards your buckets.  AND, it's just right for ball pit balls!  So you can have fun with balls and water.  The only trick to this is, if you don't have a trailer, you have to bring something with you to Lowe's to cut your guttering!  The people there I asked didn't have a way to cut it for me.  So, my Dad had to come help.  The gutter is just five dollars for a ten foot piece, so I just needed one! We cut it in thirds, I drilled a few holes in it, and attached it to my lattice using zip ties.  Zip ties rock.  When I worked in wedding decor, I could do anything with a few zip ties.  Like MacGuyver =) 

I chose to use the plastic lattice and zip ties so it would be easy if we want to adjust the water wall, or add new things later.  We screwed a few two by twos into the fence so the lattice would stick out from the wall just enough to make it easy to hook things into it. 

Here's a list of the water features, mostly purchased from the dollar store:

Pinwheels
Funnels
Colanders
Buckets
Plastic tubing (from Lowes)
Empty Bottles and Milk Jugs (from the recycling bin =)  I jazzed these up with some aqua colored duct tape.

My husband and I had a blast setting it up so the water would run through all different paths.  Some of the tubing is loose so the kids can fill the funnel and then direct it either down the guttering or through a pinwheel or at each other.  The pinwheel is really fun because it sprinkles you when it spins.  I put a little food coloring in the water so the kids could see it go through the tubes and gutters.  Such fun!  And when they are older I bet they like making up their own water walls, and this will be easy to change!