Backyard Adventures

Summer Projects

Backyard Adventures Building a sandpit, water table, and simple toys can provide years of adventure... and a little peace and quiet around the house.

The swamp maples are showing a hint of fall color, but summer is still very much with us, and the outdoors is warm, spring-bug free, and perfect for outdoor play. But over the bleating of the TV in the family room comes a petulant "Mommeeeee, whaaaaat can I doooooo?"—a sure sign that school vacation is winding down. If the kids are small, you find yourself barking, "Time Out!" more often than you like. If you've a preteen, anything but a day of mall-crawling is "Borrr-ing!" Everyone in the family is anxious for school to start—children too, even if they won't admit it—but there are still weeks of freedom for them to endure ...for you all to endure.

What say you off "Barney" or "Hollywood 9-0-whatever-0," herd the kids outside, and all of you get to work building a sand pit (or sandbox) big enough for serious excavating and a waterplay table shallow enough to be safe for toddlers but guaranteed to keep all ages intrigued, wet, and cool through the dog days. Plus an assortment of sand-building blocks and simple wheeled toys that are easy to make and plenty sturdy but no great loss if left out in the rain or under snow all winter. Together, they offer much of the fun of a trip to the shore.

An adult must do all the power-tool work, of course; but let the kids help dig the sand pit, measure and hand-saw wood, hammer, and paint. Give kids a series of small jobs they can complete success fully ...even if it does take twice as long—or perhaps because it does. Make the projects family fun rather than work. It's still vacation, remember?

OUR SAND PIT

The best-used outdoor "toy" I ever made for our kids and their little pals was the sand pit—about a cubic yard (29 cubic feet or 50 buckets) of sand dumped into a 1 1/2' deep, 3' x 4' oblong hole dug in the lawn of the side yard. Singly or two to four at a time, the children would spend hours there, building roads and caverns and hideouts. Without much squabbling either; sand play is physically active but focused. There were plenty of Tonkas and homemade sand scrapers, scoopers, haulers, and building blocks to go around. Plus, this was when Star Wars first came out, and model Sand People were right at home stalking R2D2 and 3CPO through the minidunes.

Now that the children are college age, the pit has gone back to lawn and you'd never know it existed. But under the sod, between the quince bush and big apple tree, is a wedge of well-broken-in sand waiting to be uncovered and topped up for grandchildren, if and when. They'll find a small fortune in lost Star Wars figurines buried there if they dig deep enough.

Size and Shape

To determine the size pit you need, wait till your kids get down on their hands and knees—head-to-head, playing together with little cars, model animals, or small dolls. You'll see that two children establish a more or less target-shaped play space: a one-to-three-foot-diameter joint-play circle inside a larger maneuvering circle from four to five feet in diameter. Three children need perhaps six inches more in circle diameter, and four a bit more still. Surrounding the active play space is a ring of floor space where they will keep toys not in active use.

Our sandpit was built when Sam and Martha were two and four years old and requiring constant supervision, so it had to be placed in eye-shot of the kitchen and sun room windows. The best location on our place was in the lawn, just a few steps from the kitchen porch and shaded at midday by a spreading apple tree—an important consideration now that we know how full sun can do serious damage to fair skin.

When the excavation was a foot deep, I encountered a huge apple-tree root that was too big to be grubbed out easily and large enough that I felt the tree needed it more than we need a perfectly round sandpit. So I ended up digging out a kind of peanut shape, a little less than a yard wide and some five feet long. As I watched the kids play in it over the years, I decided that the tree root had put me onto the ideal sandpit shape. The curved oval offered adequately separated independent-play spaces at each end, joint play space in the middle, and a racetrack all around.

Once site, size, and shape are decided, you need to dig the pit, assuring that it will hold shape and drain quickly. Cut out sod in easily moved chunks. You can plug good sod into bare spots in the lawn, or stack it upside-down to molder into the compost. Do not just dump the sod in a split-donut-shaped rim around the pit thinking it will reduce the digging needed, and help keep sand in. I followed that reasoning and can attest that it is impossible to mow the grass on the round hump without scalping the top and stalling the mower. If you do want to rim the pit with sod, pack a sloping fillet of thin sod chunks or top soil around the outer edge to form a gently sloping volcano shape that can be mowed easily.

Dig out the dark-colored top soil and add to compost or scatter in the garden. If it is as good as was the loamy soil under our apple tree, screen out rocks and mix with compost for potting soil. When you get to light-colored subsoil, you may need a square-ended cutting spade or even a mattock or pick to remove it ...but do dig till you get down 18 inches, and two feet is better to let the kids dig really satisfying pits and tunnels.

If your subsoil is hardpan or clay, the pit may not drain well, and stagnant water can make the sand smell like a swamp. If the sand pit is on a slope, dig a narrow trench out from the pit bottom in a slight down angle till it exits the brow of the hill. Put in perforated drainage pipe or drain tile or fill with crushed rock or coarse gravel, cover with a layer of plastic sheeting, and replace soil and sod. Or, in the center of the pit, use a posthole digger to grub out a dry well a foot across and as deep as you can reach, and fill with rubble, stones, or crushed rock.

Rim the pit cleanly by digging an undercut around the rim—scraping about six inches of soil out from under the sod all around. Especially if soil is wet, loose, or sandy, set corrugated metal or plastic lawn edging in under the sod all around the cut to keep the edge from subsiding, and letting topsoil intrude into the sand wedge. The edging will also bar soil critters from moving in and will slow the inevitable mingling of soil with sand. Don't run the edging up to ground level, as the sharp edge could cut a child; push the ring of sod jutting beyond the undercut down over the edging to form a rounded lip at the pit's edge. The mower won't reach down, but the kids will keep grass around the lip worn down.

A SANDBOX

If you do not want to dig up your lawn, boxing the sand above ground is fine, although the grass under it will be killed unless you make the considerable effort to move box and contents every few days.

You can make a simple but serviceable wooden sandbox from a sheet of 1/2" thick plywood for the box and a cheaper 1/4 sheet for a base. Cut one 4' x 8' sheet into three 16" x 8' strips (see illustration above). Bisect one strip into a pair of 4' lengths. Form the four panels into a 4' x 8' x 16"-high rectangular open-topped box (make it shorter if you wish by trimming the long panels equally).

Fasten 2" long wood-lath stakes at ends and every two feet along the outsides of plywood panels, and hammer stake ends into the soil to hold the panels down. Fasten the galvanized-steel right-angle truss plates you bought from the hardware store inside each corner—running self-tapping drywall screws through holes in plates ...through ply panels ...and into end stakes.

Make triangular corner seats with scrap wood cleats fastened underneath to fit the edges of the plywood sides. Glue and nail the seats to the ply and corner stakes, and sand the seat—the edge facing into the box especially. Finish seat and box with paint or outdoor varnish to bind in any potential splinters.

As an additional antisplinter measure, around the upper edge of all four sides, fasten wood molding or plastic bumper material from a boating-supply store (or collect three or four old bicycle tires; cut in half, snip sidewalls every few inches and staple around ply). You can install the sides around a second sheet of ply (with an inch trimmed off one end and one side) laid on the ground if you want to be able to shovel out the sand easily. There is little point of fastening bottom to sides.

Be sure you use outdoor-glued plywood that is smooth and splinter free, "finished-one-side" for the upper surface of the bottom sheet and inner surface of the sides—where kids will scoot around and might get splinters. Before beginning construction it is best to seal both side surface of plywood with a clear, weatherproofing finish to bind in splinters and retard decay.

A WOOD-BEAM SAND CRIB

I've built plenty of plywood boxes, however never to hold sand. The one time I did build soil bins above ground was to contain compost mixed with glass cullet made by crushing old bottles (this was in 1969—just before the first Earth Day when municipal recycling began to catch on). I used it to grow lovely, straight carrots, but the design would make a sturdy, quick, and easily disassembled/recycled sandbox.

The carrot crib was made of stacked 8"-square, 8'-long fence posts sawed from native Northern white cedar—which (along with redwood and red cedar in the West, Osage orange in the Midwest, and others) just naturally resists the terrors of bugs and rot. Cheaper is pressure-treated lumber used in ground-contact construction. However, the pressure-treatment contains copper and arsenic, two metallic poisons that I didn't want near the carrots and you surely won't want holding in your kid's sand pile.

I notched the ends log-cabin—like with the chain saw and stacked the posts three high on a flat and level area of sod. Their weight held them in place, but they were warped enough to wobble, so for good measure, I drilled 3/8" holes down through the corner joints and dropped in 6" spikes as lock pins.

To get sand, I recruited an assortment of kids and made them sit quietly in the pickup truck bed while we drove to a natural gravel and sand bank. After the kids chose the best sand in the hill, we all started shoveling it into buckets and dumping it in the truck. We picked out roots and clumps of sod and rocks large enough to do damage in small hands. Back home after a stop at the swimming hole, we dumped the larger rocks into the dry well I'd sunk in the center of the pit, then shoveled in the sand. It took three loads—wet sand and a half-dozen wet, bouncy kids being heavy enough that a third-of-a-yard (9 cubic feet) made the truck's rear springs complain a little.

If you don't have a truck, but live near a natural sand deposit, you can haul it buckets at a time in the trunk of a car. You may be able to get road sand from your town's landfill or highway department. Or, you can order it hauled in a dump truck from any aggregate or traprock supplier to the building trades. Clean "sharp" sand will be stone and dirt free. Or as a last resort, intown pool and outdoor furniture retailers sell white beach sand in bags for city kids who need sandboxes as much or more than country kids.

Cats

The neighborhood cats may try to adopt a sand pile as a giant kitty-litter box. Don't let it start. Besides being anaesthetic in the extreme, cat feces may contain human pathogens and parasites and you surely don't want the kids playing anywhere near it. Our dogs woofed cats out of the yard during the day and the kid's green-eyed, orange she-cat chased them away at night—and, once she'd joined the kids playing in the sand a couple of times, she seemed to prefer the loose soil of our garden to the sand pit. But, I kept a constant check on cat activity. On the way in from the garden every evening, I'd smooth the sand with the garden rake. If I'd ever seen signs of a digging or romping cat, I'd have raked and hosed the sand clean and put on a cover.

The best sand cover I know is one of those inexpensive blue, woven vinyl tarps you can get for a few dollars at any hardware store. Leave one over the sand anytime it's not in use, holding it in place with stones all around or wood planks on top. The kids will be able to remove it and (if you nag them long enough) replace it. If rain water pools on top, burn a few small holes through the middle with a small flame or soldering iron. (The heat will seal the edges so the hole margin won't ravel and enlarge with use.)

AN OUTDOOR WATER TABLE

If you've visited a kindergarten recently, you've seen the children playing in an indoor water table: a sturdy worktable with a low rim around the perimeter to hold a very shallow pool of water. At an indoor table, children must be disciplined to create quiet little water worlds. Outdoors, play will be more rambunctious, so water can be a little deeper and bathing suits are the garment of choice. We always provided a supply of little disposable bathroom-size paper cups for pouring—otherwise, a succession of cooking measures, coffee mugs, and dangerous glass drinking vessels found their way out to the table.

Size and Depth

Most school water tables are built to be kid-waist high, but for a backyard version you needn't build a piece of furniture with a rigid frame and legs. Build it on flat ground and block it to be perfectly level so the kids can play in it much as they play in the sandbox, and you'll save time, trouble and weight (filled with sand or gravel, rocks, and water, it will be heavy enough.)

Like the sand pit, the table should be long enough to present an independent play area at each end but be narrow enough that children ranged along opposing sides can reach in and play together. Again, observe a pair of kids playing dolls or cars on the rug and measure the distance from the belt of one to the other. I've found that a 2' x 4' table is fine for small kids, 2 1/2 x 6' good for older ones. Do not be tempted to make it so big the children are tempted to climb in, splash around, and bust it up.

If small kids have (even forbidden) access to a hose, they will eventually fill the water table to brimming. And despite being told not to, they will eventually go wading in it. A small child could conceivably slip, fall ...and a toddler can drown in even an inch of water. Unless you will have an adult in constant attendance, don't give them the chance to come to grief. If your youngest is under age 3, build a table with a low rim or drill drain holes all around so water can never get more than an inch deep. If the youngest is over age 6, water can be up to 4" deep. However, the table isn't meant to be a pool, but a miniworld with shallow, playoceans and rivers. I think that a box with 3" sides containing an inch or so of gravel and drain-hole drilled to give a maximum standing-water depth of 2" is best. The kids can have fun and you needn't worry. You can block up one end a couple of inches to give a shallow and deep end and enough slope to make little rivers through the gravel or sand when the hose is left on in a trickle. Kids can use wood blocks to dam the stream in 3"-deep pools to give a most satisfying, little waterfall.

BUILD A 2 1/2'-WIDE x 5'-LONG x 4"—DEEP WATER TABLE

You will need:

Tools

Electric circular saw with plywood-cutting blade; Electric drill/screw driver with Phillips-head drive bit and 1/16" drill bit; Long, measuring steel and pencil, or chalk and string snap line; Hammer and nail set; Caulking gun with 1 tube of outdoor-grade construction cement for wood, and 1 tube of (waterproof) adhesive, clear acrylic caulk; Sanding block or electric sander and sandpaper; Staple gun and 3/8" stainless steel staples (for sheet-good waterproofing).

Materials

One 4' x 8' sheet of 1/2"-thick outdoor-glued plywood (smooth-one-side); Four 2' x 3' x 8' clear fir or spruce wall studs (straight in all dimensions); Fifty 1 1/2" long, #8 stainless-steel Phillips-head drywall screws; Twenty 1" long, #8 stainless-steel Phillips-head drywall screws; Twenty 3" galvanized finish nails; Twenty 1" galvanized finish nails; Paint or clear finish; 20' marine rubber bumper stock (or 4 or 5 old bicycle tires).

Construction

General assembly notes:

a. With 1/16 " drill bit, drill pilot holes through plywood to start all nail and screw holes. b. Apply a bead of construction cement in all wood joints.

Steps:

1. Cut ply into:

One 5' 4" x 2' 6" wide bottom panel; Two 5' 4" x 6" wide side panels; Two 2', 6" x 6" wide end panels; Eight 6" triangles for corner gussets.

2. Cut framing from 2" x 3" studs, the sides first.

Lay the bottom panel on the ground and cut two lengths of 2" x 3" to be as long as it is. These will be the sides of the frame.

3. Fasten side-frame boards to the plywood bottom panel.

With smooth, finished face of the bottom ply facing up, set a 2" x 3" frame side board under each long edge, the 2" x 3"s "on edge"—with wider 3" surface facing out. Be sure outer edges of frame boards are even with edges of the bottom sheet. Fasten with screws 6" from end and placed every 6' ; screws will be through ply and down into the 2" x 3"s.

4. Cut frame ends and cross braces to fit bottom panel. Turn bottom panel over. Measure and cut 2" x 3"s to fit between ends of the frame boards just screwed on. Measure and cut 5 other lengths of 2 x 3 to form a ladder shape of cross braces between frame sides.

5. Tack fasten ends and braces. Arrange frame ends and cross braces in a ladder shape on underside of bottom panel. Cement and tack in place with long, easily removed nails through 2" x 3"s and into ply.

6. Reinforce underside of corners. Cut four triangular braces from scrap ply and place one at each corner. Use cement and short finish nails to fasten.

7. Carefully turn ply over again. Set screws through bottom panel and down to the frame members, screws about every 6". Now the bottom is framed.

8. Next, "box in" framed bottom with plywood side and end panels. Lay out the 5' 4" plywood side panels along the framed bottom, lower edge of side panels even with bottom edge of frame.

9. Lay out the plywood end panels. Arrange and (as needed) trim ends of sides and ends so all corners meet in a butt joint (end of one meets side edge of the other). Fasten sides and ends to frame with screws 6" apart, 1/2" up from lower edge. Remove tack nails from underside.

10. Cut and install corner cleats to strengthen up side of corners. Trim about a foot of scrap 2" x 3" to be a 1/2" square. Measuring in the box, cut four approx. 3" cleats—one to fit into each corner, upper end even with the rim. Drill stag gered holes 3" in from corners and fasten cleats with glue and 1" screws through ply into cleats.

11. Caulk and water seal the box. See below.

12. Install triangular top corner braces: Apply glue to bottom of remaining four plywood triangles and tack one at each corner of box, edges even with outside of box. Use small nails through triangle and into edges of plywood side and side panels and a long nail down into corner cleat. Countersink nails well into ply. Sand edges. Caulk all joints inside and out and water seal the plywood.

Waterproofing

The table needn't be completely waterproof, but it makes for a better job, dryer kids, and less water waste if it is. Here are three options:

A good bead of sticky, clear acrylic caulk along insides of all seams will seal a well-fastened water table if wood surfaces to be caulked are dry and dust free. But, under repeated soakings, the caulk will work loose and plywood will deteriorate unless covered with a waterproof finish. Better is to caulk and then paint with clear outdoor varnish or several applications of sky blue, glossy, latex-enamel paint intended for house trim.

Better yet is the old way of sealing canoes and covering aircraft. Get ahold of enough lightweight canvas, blue denim, or any open weave, hard-finished fabric to cover the sides and bottom, plus a gallon or two of marine (canoe) paint or airplane dope. Sky blue is the best color. Cut fabric into panels to fit bottom and all sides with a good inch of overlap at seams and over the top of side and end panels. Along bound edges of the fabric, snip off enough 2" wide fabric tape to place over seams. Double-over cut edges and staple edges of fabric panels to the wood, mugging well and stapling into corners and pulling fabric over flat areas as tight as you can. Then apply successive coats of paint (under the second coat put painting tape over seams) till you have a smooth surface. Let the children help paint too; they love it, and modern latex enamels wash off little hands and out of clothes so long as you don't let them dry hard.

You can do a more modern job by replacing the fabric with more costly, but vastly stronger, fiberglass mat and replacing canoe paint with two-part epoxy resin—obtainable with directions at any boating-supply house. The resin comes in two parts; mixed together and with color added, it is applied over the fiberglass just as paint goes over cloth and will make a glossy minipool. (DO NOT let small kids help apply the resin, which is caustic and emits vinegary fumes till cured.)

Land Medium

Kids need something to make land out of. Sod looks good for a few minutes but quickly becomes sodden and gets the water muddy. Crushed rock is arguably the best, as its corners and many angular faces help it stay put better in water than sand or gravel. The heavier pebbles in gravel make more stable land areas under water than sand. Kids will bring in rocks, clumps of sod, grass and leaves, and who knows what all else, and the table can look a proper mess at the end of a day's play. It is easy to move gravel around under water with the hose to wash out peanut butter sandwich leavings, while fine sand grains will compact and hold trash.

Unless you want to enforce schooltype discipline, the kids will splash and throw water. Crushed rock or gravel will stay put on the bottom while sand will splash out with the water, to get into silky young hair and small eyes.

Crushed rock and washed gravel are available from any aggregate-supply outlet. You won't want a dump truck full and you can buy it in bags, or you can get crushed marble and other decorative rock at most large nurseries. For a small table, you might find it easiest to buy fish-tank-bottom gravel from the pet store. The cheapest is natural stone, though the kids love to mix up a variety of virulent neon colors that hurt my eyes. Adding a new bag of a fresh color once in a while will enliven a slow afternoon.

Moving Water

Remember when you were a kid, how fascinating it was to play in a little stream? You could dam it up, float sticks down it, and imagine you were Tom Sawyer rafting the Mississippi. Block up one end of the water table an inch or two, with shorter supports every few inches downhill, hold the end of the garden hose in one corner with a brick, and leave the water on in a small flow. Let the overflow run over at the other end or drill drain holes to control water level. Experiment so water flow is strong enough to flow through but not so strong it erodes "land" areas. If it is the dry season, you can conserve water by running the overflow to your garden or permanent plantings.

You can attach elaborate faucets and drain cocks, but they just add weight. And you'll want td be able to move the table each day, lest the lawn under it become a swamp. A 1 1/2" hole in the bottom with a sink drain plug will ease emptying. A pair of 2" x 3"s with ends cut in an up angle and screwed to the bottom of the table, with a rope loop at one end, will make one-parent moving easier.

TOYS FOR SAND & WATER

Sand and water are fluid materials that kids will configure as their imaginations dictate. But, if castle walls, riverside piers, or Matchbox-car garages are to be much more than humps in the sand, young builders need something rigid to form or reinforce walls, platforms, and roofs. Plus, the children need mobile toys to carry their imaginations through the formed media.

Long, narrow wooden blocks are better for reinforcing sand castles than conventional squares and rectangles. Wooden wheeled excavators and trucks are good to move the sand around. Plus, they will float to serve as boats, barges, bridges, and rafts on the water table.

I made blocks and toy sand movers from woodshop scraps: hardwood left over from furniture projects and softwood from building-materials cutoffs. You'll have a few feet of 2" x 3" and plywood left over from making the water table. If you don't have a shop of your own, see if you can salvage leftovers from a local lumber finisher, a commercial furniture maker, or a neighborhood woodworker. Check building sites for ends of 2-by framing lumber and other scrap. You might see if local hardware stores, supermarkets, outdoor sports, or camping goods outlets, or roadside stands sell wood stove or vacation camp fire kindling. Stores near me sell plastic-wrapped packages of assorted factory scrap hardwood for $3.00—expensive to start a fire, but far less than you'd pay for the equivalent board-footage of raw building stock.

Or, buy a few lengths of good clear 2" x 3" or 2" x 2" lumber, some 4/5" x 4" decking-board stock, and several feet of square, round, slat, and L-shaped hard pine or poplar trim stock, and saw it to length. I have an electric cutoff/miter saw that produces square ends automatically and quickly. You can get the same result at less cost with an inexpensive plastic miter box and muscle-powered backsaw.

Sand-Building Blocks

To prevent splinters, choose closegrained, well-dried wood that is hard enough your thumbnail can't make much of a dent in it. For sand-pit play, cut any size board from a 2" x 4" stud to 1/2" x 2" wood lath or 1 1/2"- or 2"-diameter dowel into 4", 6", and 8" lengths. Much smaller blocks disappear in sand. Larger blocks are out of sand-castle scale and too easily become kid weapons when the inevitable squabbles erupt. Sand all blocks well, especially ends rough-cut across the grain. At minimum, seal with a coat or two of deck sealer. For more elaborate finish options, see below.

Strips of plywood will be used to make roads, roofs of buildings, and walls. Make up a bunch—4" wide and 6", 8", and 10" long. Raw plywood will warp and delaminate in the weather, so soak it well in a hard finish.

SAND TOYS

I made up a bunch of simple earth movers. Each design illustrated represents a different combination of construction options that you can mix and match in designs you or kids make yourselves.

Bodies were made from 2" x 4" or 2" x 3" softwood or by gluing and clamping strips of hardwood or plywood scrap and sanding so joints largely disappear. I used Titebond waterproof glue, a "space-age" indoor/outdoor wood adhesive that requires no mixing as does epoxy.

Using a Forstner bit that produces straight-sided, flat-bottomed holes, I drilled bodies to accept those little round "peoples" that come with several brands of wheeled toys ...or you can turn your own if you have a lathe.

You can also make your own wheels on a lathe, or using a circle cutter on a drill press or a hole saw on your portable drill. Ready-made wheels in several designs and sizes are available at craft and hobby stores or from the mail-order catalogs that advertise in woodworking magazines.

Between painted or varnished bodies and wheels, I inserted enough fiber washers to prevent rubbing.

The following are brief explanations of how to piece together a few models (see illustrations on page 54), but there's room for versatility of design, so feel free.

Pusher The body of this minidozer is made from a block of 2" x 3" building stud, the blade from 1/2"-thick hardwood. Three sets of wood wheels are fastened with waterproof wood glue to 3/8 dowel axles. Axles are set into grooves carved into under-body and held on by a hardwood strip fastened with rustproof wood screws. No drilling (or drill) required, and easy to make and repair. Finish is minimal and intentionally rough: two coats of deck-sealer (sanding between), to accept a child's crayons or marker, yet clean off reasonably well.

Scooper Joints are screwed and glued except for the scoop, which is made from thin, oak box-making stock (or plywood) and joined with dovetails made by eye with a coping saw with fine blade and a 1/4"blade hand chisel (easier than you think—try it; just keep the chisel razor sharp). For strength, hardwood fillets (from the flying model or doll-making section of a craftsupplies store) are glued at inside corners of scoop. The wheels are held on by 3/8" wheel pegs glued into 3/8 holes drilled in the body. Gives the best-finished look, but the peg axle is relatively fragile and difficult to repair. To show off the joinery, parts are stained with contrasting colors, glued sparingly, filled, and spray-varnished to a craft-store shine.

Hauler Made with a 2"-3" softwood body with plywood base/bed. Wood wheels of this flatbed truck are held on with short 1/8"-shanked brass wood screws set into pilot holes drilled into hard dowel plugs that have been glued into holes into the softwood truck body. Be sure to use screws with round heads, as tops of flathead screws have sharp edges. Parts were filled and painted before final assembly, then, were given a several coats of clear.

Roller Body is made of three strips cut from a 916" x 2" strip of white oak scrap, notched to accept wheels, and laminated together with glue and brass wood screws. The fat, turned-maple wheels are attached with 3/8" wooden wheel pegs. The example pictured was left natural, filled, sanded, and sprayed with several coats of clear acrylic to produce a craft-store finish.

Finishing

Most children have to be discouraged from marking or coloring on toys—especially on smooth, carefully varnished, inside-use wood blocks and rolling toys. Our blocks are for outdoors, however, and I find that kids adore being allowed, even encouraged, to use crayons, markers, or paints to turn the building blocks into girders (or magic wands) ...and to draw spokes and mufflers (or a flowered border) on the wheeled earth-moving toys.

Probably most satisfactory to most young children is for you to soak the wood in a colorless outdoor sealer (made for decks), and let the children do a quick finish sanding and then decorate with water paints, crayons, or washable markers. The colors will wear off quickly, and I've found that the kids will get the urge to redecorate several times over a summer.

Some kids—mainly boys aged 6 to 8 who are future high school Wheelheads—love vehicles with wheels that leave aggressive-looking tread marks in moist sand. You can give your tread-maker a narrowedged wood file and let him make grooves or notches or crosses in the wheels of his favorite sand vehicle to leave personalized "treads." Black marker will give tires a satisfying color.

Exposed to a summer of sun and rain, unfinished wood will weather to a mottled gray that isn't very attractive to an adult eye, but doesn't seem to reduce play value to the kids. Bring the blocks and toys in come fall, hose off the sand, bleach with diluted Chlorox or a wood bleach, and store till next winter—when you and the children can refurbish them.

Refinishing or rebuilding the sand toys can be a powerful hint of warm weather to come and become a late-winter family ritual much like carving pumpkins on Halloween. Our kids would get all excited, bundle up in snowsuits and boots, take the wooden toys out to the sandpit (still buried under a yard of snow), play with them in the snow for a while, andof course-leave them buried there. So long as we kept the dogs from carrying the good-chewing wood blocks off, building blocks and sand movers would sink as snow melted and be in place and ready to excavate when the weather warmed in the spring.

A few fastidious young ones and many older kids who are developing a precocious sense of order will resist marking on toys or having toys that look "dirty." For them—or to satisfy your own sense of order—you can give the blocks and toys a better finish. Easiest is to assemble toys, then preserve the wood in one step with several coats of outdoor wood preserving sealer/stain. For a better job, before assembling, sand the wood smooth—slightly, rounding only those sharp corners that will be exposed after assembly. Treat exposed faces with several coats of a good sanding sealer (sanding lightly between coats). Spray parts with several coats of nontoxic exterior-grade enamel, truck bodies in bright colors, and wheels in black or bright with black tires. Assemble and then, for a toy-store finish, spray with thin coats of clear outdoor acrylic finish.

Illustrations:

Building the Sandbox
Building the Water Table