I found a few cute ideas, but none of them were truly toddler friendly. One idea was to use chair leg cups and fill them with glue and little round magnets. I did use this general idea, but the toddlers I care for would have those rubber legs disassembled and be eating magnets before I could stock the "fish pond"!
Magnets are tough to find, that are not choking hazards, made of lead or very expensive! If you have any links to find them, please let me know! The magnets I used were the back of a "wreath hanger" which was in the magnet section at Michaels craft stores. I cut the plastic plug that held the four magnets in place and used them individually.
Along with the magnets, I purchased the following stuff at Home Depot; blue tubing called sharkbite, loctite super glue for plastic, 32 mm round cups, and 1/8" braided nylon cord. I used a hacksaw to cut the sharkbite into four- 15" lengths. The cord was cut to about 36" lengths and i threaded it through the magnet and then both ends back through the cap and tied with a square knot. I added a touch of glue so it would not come untied inside the tube. I did not want to leave an open circle of cord so the children could "catch" each other with a friends head in the loop and choke them...so I tied the cord into knots evenly along the doubled length. Using the two step super glue for plastics, I attached the caps to both ends of the tubing and ended up some cute fishing poles!
