Homemade Water Table

I guess like any kid, Oliver loves playing with sand and water.  That's why sand and water tables - where the equivalent of a sandbox or kiddie pool full of water are propped up to toddler height - are such a big hit  When there's one set up in his ECFE classroom, the teachers have to referee the kids who crowd around it.  And the Children's Museum has a couple huge water tables with clear plastic pipes they can direct water and ping pong balls through.  It often takes coaxing to get Oliver to move on to another gallery.  The rice box that I set up months ago and Oliver has yet to grow tired of is just another variation of the sand table. 

After a winter of vacuuming up rice, (and lentils too) I was looking forward to moving the sand/water table-type activities outside and I thought it would be a worthwhile investment to get Oliver his own water table.  Last summer he loved filling buckets with water and "painting" the sidewalk with the brushes his dad would pick up for him at Home Depot.  A water table would be even more fun and we wouldn't have to repeatedly refill the bucket Oliver loved dumping all over the sidewalk.

When I didn't find anything on Craig's List, I checked out new water tables.  I was looking for a simple design like this one from Lakeshore Learning. 

What I wasn't looking for was the $90 price tag. 

Luckily for Oliver, he has a very handy dad, so instead he got this...



Oliver plays with his new homemade water table.

Chris followed the Sand and Water Table plans I found online and spent a grand total of $27.  And the price was only that high because he bought an $11 drill bit and $4 sink plug to create what I consider a very necessary upgrade - a drain.  Otherwise the cost would have just been a $12 cement tub.  The other materials, lumber, sandpaper and clearcoat, (not yet applied when the above picture was taken) were leftover from previous projects.