DIY Hurdles for Kids
Our youngest son is finishing preschool this year, and the class was participating in a field day event. There was very little support from the school for the event, however, so the parents ended up doing most of the organizing. We are fortunate in that there are at least two or three parents involved with the preschool that understand how fun a field day can be for young kids.
Melissa asked the school for access to some of the small hurdles that were being used for the older kids, but was told that preschoolers are too small to jump hurdles and they might get injured. Not one to let adversity get her down, she decided we could make some hurdles ourselves. I thought that would be a great project, and I advised her to get 3/4″ PVC pipe and some tees and elbows for the project. She ended up getting the following items:
- 3 x 10-foot lengths of 3/4″ PVC pipe
- 8 x 3/4″ PVC Tees
- 8 x 3/4″ PVC 90° Elbows
- PVC Primer
- PVC Cement
- Tubing cutter for PVC pipe less than 1 5/8″ diameter
Using these supplies I was charged with making 4 hurdles of reasonable size for preschool children. I first laid out the three pipes and measured for the feet and the cross-bar. I wanted the feet to be 8″ each, and the cross-bar 36″ across, but I didn’t know how much that would leave for the vertical supports. I got all of the feet laid out and the cross-bars and was left with 3 sections of pipe 24″, 16″ and 48″ long. I divided these into six, 12″ pieces and two 8″ pieces, which would give me three hurdles approximately 14″ high and one hurdle 10″ high.
Happy with the fact that I would be able to build all 4 hurdles with zero waste I set about making the cuts. You could do this with a hacksaw, but using the tubing cutter was MUCH easier, resulting in nice clean cuts, in a fraction of the time a saw would have required! Starting with the feet I attached two of the 8″ pieces into each of the tees, and then attached two elbows to each cross-bar. I was planning to cement these pieces together, but the fit was pretty tight without glue and I ended up just leaving them loose. I may go back and glue them later so that I don’t have to keep straightening out downed hurdles. Regardless of whether I glue these pieces or not I will leave the vertical pieces unglued so that I can make the hurdles taller as the boys grow. I may also get some PVC end caps for the feet so that the cut edge of pipe is not exposed.
Once they were all assembled, I tossed the 4 hurdles into the back lawn and let the kids at them. The laughing, running and jumping left them both breathless in 10 minutes and it was obvious the project was a success. It took about half an hour to finish, and cost $34 for all the items on the list. Expansion of the current set of hurdles will require only PVC pipe, and the sky’s the limit!
And no one was hurt at field day!