Dish the screen — put on the sunscreen

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Linky Sprinks’ durable, high-quality plastic, components and fittings are carefully designed to make it easy for little hands to secure.

Hide the PlayStations and Nintendo’s. It’s summertime and kids of all ages benefit from outdoor fun and games.

Traditional active play opportunities such as kites, tag and sandlot baseball abound; they likely will never go out of style. In an era when outdoor toys have to compete with computers, Wii, iPods and such, there’s still plenty of new ideas for backyard fun.

Nearly all backyard play in Southwest Florida’s brutal summer weather requires a good dose of water. Here are a few new and innovative items on the market.

Linky Sprinks turn any backyard into a personalized water park. The best part is, the fun can change with the twist of the wrist.

Tom Schellhardt came up with the idea while watching his 6-year-old play with the odds and ends of the sprinkler system in his yard. This build-it-yourself sprinkler system is a new twist on building toys, letting kids construct their own sprinkler systems, and learn about water flow, pressure and control as they play.

The colorful, cleverly designed sprinkler heads feature a bird that twirls and sprays water from its wings, a dinosaur that sprays a fan of water from its back, a spider that kids can twist in order to get three different sprays, and a snake that adjusts to shoot streams of water.

Linky Sprinks retail between $19 and $89. For more information, go online to www.linkysprinks.com.

When it comes to inflatable water fun, the old Slip’n’Slide is still popular, but parents will be hard-pressed to resist the selections from We Got Fun, with prices ranging from $10 for an sprinkling archway to $100 for the Splash Dome, complete with accessories including giant sponge balls, soaker stations and shields for defending against the sponges. The company also offers springless, trampoline inner-tube creations ranging in price from $595 for a mini Moon Bouncer to a whopping $3,795 for the family-sized Orbit. These are available at www.gotfunwedo.com.

As to what happens if water restrictions are still in place, Pete Scheviero at Mr. Toad’s Toy Co. on Airport-Pulling Road in Naples, had some suggestions.

The Plasma Car, which earned the 2001 Hong Kong World Patent Fair gold medal, operates on wiggle power. No joke! It has no gears, no peddles and no batteries. Kids, or adults (“Today’s” Al Roker rode one) sit on the compact futuristic looking race car and wiggle the steering wheel. Using the principles of inertia, gravity, centrifugal force and friction, they’re off and running, both forward and back, on any smooth, flat surface. The car is $70 online at www.plasmacar.com.

Target’s Beach Blast Ball is another fun and inexpensive way to beat the summer heat. Priced at $12, this inflatable ball attaches to any garden hose, features multiple sprinklers along the spine, spraying water as the ball dances and moves in every direction. It is designed for ages 3 years and up. For more information, go online to Target.com.