liquid soap optional, something natural is a good idea so it won’t hurt your lawn
Instructions
First, lay out your 100-foot sheet down the yard. Lay out your pool noodles on each side of the sheet, saving one or two for the very top of the slide.Ideally you want your noodles to lay end to end down the sides, but we are down a few noodles over the years, so there was a little space between them and it still worked out fine.
With one person working each side of the slide, roll your pool noodles into the plastic so that the noodle is a little more than fully wrapped in it. Use your 6″ lawn stakes to keep your noodles in place (you’ll want at least two per noodle) and you may want a rubber mallet to fully hit them into the ground. Move onto the next noodle and work your way down the slide as someone rolls and stakes the opposite side as you go. Once all your noodles are in, roll a noodle into the top of the plastic as well and stake it in place so the top is secured.
We found that hay bales are a great way to make a little stopping point at the end of your slide since they are solid but forgiving if you hit into them at the end. They also make a little splash zone at the end, which is also kind of fun! Set your hay bales up in a semi-circle at the end of your slide and either pull the bottom of your long plastic sheet up and over the bales and secure with stakes on the other side (you can go into the bottom back of the hay bales or the ground) or you can use a separate piece of plastic if you have another tarp and cover over the whole thing first, tucking all the extra under the bales.Then, pull the bottom of your long plastic sheet up and over.The extra sheets tends to keep the bales in place and covers over all the hay, which can be a little scratchy to hit into with your bare skin.
Once your slip and slide is in place, it’s time to add water and slide! We just set up a hose nozzle on a shower setting and laid it at the top of our slide for our water source. You really don’t need a lot of water to get going on the slide, so find the lowest setting that still allows you to have enough to slide on. Putting down a little soap on your body, a raft, or the slide can also help, but don’t go crazy—you just need a little bit! Make sure to turn off the water if no one is sliding or if you take a snack break to conserve use.Blowing up your pool rafts is also a fun way to go down the slide that can give you a little more cushion and kids love to ride down them as well.
I strongly suggest using the 6″ long stakes and not shorter ones since they are much less likely to come out and be a safety hazard as they are well in the ground. But I did go around with a rubber mallet halfway through the party and hit back down any stakes that were trying to come up at all, just to be safe.
When it’s time to tear down the slide, pull out all the stakes and unwrap the pool noodles. Let the noodles fully air dry before putting them away back in their box. The hardest part of the slip and slide process is drying out your long slide before putting it away. You’ll want to get it up off the ground so both sides are dry before you put it away. That way you don’t pull out a gross moldy tarp the next time you go to use it. You can hang it over porch railings, outdoor chairs, fences, whatever you have, but you really want it to be pretty dry before putting it away (you can towel off areas as needed).
