Simple as it sounds, pumping colored water through clear plastic tubing is a favorite activity at the Community Partnership of the Ozarks's annual Community-Wide Play Day in Springfield, Missouri. There are two or three setups, and sometimes the kids race to see who can pump the fastest, says organizer and mom of five Dana Carroll. "My three-year-old loves spending time dumping and pouring the buckets."

What you need:

Valve-style siphon pumps and 30-foot lengths of thin-walled, clear vinyl tubing to fit each pump (both available at hardware stores)

buckets

water

food coloring

a swing set, tree, or other simple, supportive framework on which the tubing can be hung (the Community Partnership uses PVC pipe and corner joints assembled into a 5-foot-tall house-shaped structure)

How It's Done:

Wrap the tubing up, down, and around the support structure. Attach a siphon pump to one end of each tube and place its intake pipe in a bucket of water dyed with food coloring. Place the other end of each tube in an empty bucket. Have kids pump the siphons to send water coursing through the tubes. Let the kids have a race to see who can pump colored water from their first bucket to the second the fastest. They can also play with different looping arrangements to see how the changes affect the water's flow.

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• 2 or More Players |
• Outdoor Games |
• Water Games

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