Ice Play

This activity is so fun......even for adults!  I wasn't really planning on doing so many ice activities, but the kids have really enjoyed it and hopefully have learned a few things about ice and melting!

Last night I froze some random containers of water.  I even made some frozen eggs with the jell-o egg containers.....that was pretty cool!

You could do this with one big block of ice as well, I just thought it would be more interesting this way.

With all of our ice ready to go, I had the kids pour salt (any salt would work) on the ice.

Then drip water colors (food coloring and water) on the ice and salt.  You can keep adding salt as well to make more crevices in the ice. 

Now, the point of this activity is that the salt melts crevices and tunnels through the ice and the water color helps make the tunnels more visible.  Of course it's fun to make and do and it also looks pretty cool, but we also talked about how the salt was melting the ice.  How salt melts ice at a lower temperature and all that.  But I don't think they really cared.  They were all too busy adding more salt and dripping more color and mixing colors together.  This activity kept their attention for quite some time. 

I have also done this in the summer outside.......as the ice chunks sit in the sun, the salt will create more crevices and as it does, the liquid water color moves, blends and sparkles in the light.  If you hold it up to the light, it looks like a crystal!

 They all asked if they could take it home!

Tracy