DIY: Use Home Improvement Sprinkler System to Make Kids Water Playground

Home improvement stores sell component based sprinkler systems. You buy some hose, connectors and valves. Choose some cool sprinkler heads. Then hook the whole thing up to your hose.

In our case, my husband installed a splitter down on the hose faucet so he'll still be able to hook up a regular garden hose and then ran the sprinkler system hose up to the deck level. He attached the hose under the deck rail. I just made that sound simple, but it did take him several hours. Then he pierced holes (with a special tool) in the hose and installed a smaller hose with a valve and sprinkler head every few feet along the deck. With the valves, the children can turn each sprinkler head on and off individually. We also left two of the smaller hoses free flowing and called them kid faucets. They can open the valves and use them to fill cups, make "water snakes", spray each other (neck down), or anything else that suits their imagination. There is also a master valve they can use to turn the entire thing on and off at will.

Hopefully the pictures will give you an idea. We got it up and running today. The children had so much fun. I intend to send the children out to play every day this summer in the morning when the deck is in the shade. I'll simply send them out in clothes that I don't mind getting wet. They will be able to play in the sprinklers whenever they like, and use the "kid faucets" whenever they like as well.

Speech Steps from Isolation to Spontaneous Sentences

This is a description of the variety of ways you can use the exact same set of stimuli to work with children who are at vastly different levels of proficiency with a target sound. Or, alternately, a description of the set of incremental steps you can go through using the same set of stimuli to take a child from producing a sound in isolation to using that same sound in spontaneous sentences. For the purposes of this discussion, I am using the /s/ phoneme as an example, but the same process can be used with any phoneme.

At the beginning of the spectrum, you have a child who is stimulable for the target sound, but is having difficulty at the CV, VC, or CVC single-syllable word level. At the end of the spectrum, you have a child who is ready to work on carryover to conversational speech with the sound. Let's look at the steps you can take with the same set of stimuli to vary difficulty to meet the child's needs.

I attempted to get this information down in paragraph form, but it was too wordy. An illustrated flowchart seemed to work better, so here it is. You might consider printing this and attaching it to a copy of one or two of my free articulation card sets and sending it home as homework for the summer with students.

Speech Steps from Isolation to Spontaneous Sentences

A New Succulent Garden

Around the time I started my first "real" job (self-contained speech and language classroom in a middle school) I discovered succulent plants. Traditionally, I cannot keep houseplants alive, but these adorable tiny plants were supposed to be so easy to take care of I couldn't resist picking one out. It lived on a windowsill in my classroom. I got addicted to them. I wanted one of every kind I could find. They would grow, I'd split them up and transplant them to bigger pots. I got a shelf. The kids enjoyed helping me watering them. I'd cart them home every summer and bring them back the next fall.

Then, one summer I got married, quit my job, decided to return to graduate school to pursue a doctorate, and bought my first house. Umm. Let's just say things were crazy and I was looking to simply in every way possible. I put the entire garden of plants on the curb with a "Free to a Good Home sign". They all disappeared overnight.

Honestly, I didn't miss them. First there was the new house, new marriage, and graduate school. Then Michael and Ava arrived in quick succession. There was a time when the children were both tiny, that I couldn't hardly muster the energy to pet my cats much less miss my succulent garden.

Now that the children are older and life is beginning to find some balance again I have been looking longingly at the tiny baby succulents in the garden section of whichever store I happen to be in at the moment. This weekend I decided to treat myself to a late mother's day gift. I picked out some pretty succulents, some cactus potting soil, and a pretty neat pot that will securely straddle my deck rail and built myself a brand new succulent garden. It's beautiful. I couldn't be more delighted. And this sounds a bit dorky, but my spirits lift and I feel a little joy every time my eye wanders in that direction.