On Friday afternoon I was feeling a little low and wishing that I could have gone to the thanksgiving service of a friend, when inspiration hit me. As a former science teacher and co-founder of Science Sparks, Kerry loved making it easier for children to understand science and so I felt what better way to honour that, than get to grips with a science 'experiment' with The Boy.
I'd seen this activity on Pinterest which, while intended for Christmas, gave a great bank of ideas for playing with kitchen and craft materials to see what happens. I prepared the activity while The Boy napped and then we were ready to have fun with some ice!
I used a takeaway container and filled it with water, food colouring, glitter, sand, and sequins and then placed it in the freezer. When it was set I removed it and placed it into a tray, giving The Boy a pot of table salt and rock salt, a spoon and a water spray bottle.
He had brilliant fun making holes in the ice block with the salt and the jet of water. After a while the salt dissolved into the water and ran down the side of the block causing channels to be melted in. The Boy spotted these and picked off the ice crystals. The look of wonder on his face when he held the ice crystals in his hand, and they then subsequently melted, was amazing; sheer amazement!
Following on from this we decided to make some coloured ice cubes using food colouring. I used ice cube bags for this as I wanted to try and get the food colouring to slowly merge with the water creating ice cubes of slightly different shades. I filled the ice cube bags with water first, then inserted a straw and poured the food colouring down the straw.
Once these had frozen, I again gave The Boy the tray with the coloured ice cubes, table salt, rock salt and a water spray bottle. The effects were even more immediate because the ice cubes were smaller and therefore melted more quickly.
He was fascinated with the ice crystals that were formed by the salt water solution melting the ice, and kept pouring more and more salt onto one red ice cube to try and create a hole through the middle of it. We discussed what coloured water would appear once the ice melted, and we talked about where the salt had gone. We then discussed the colour of the water once all three different coloured ice cubes had melted and mixed together.
Science Sparks has got a fantastic selection of ice play activities which are great fun for this time of year.
ooooh I love it, especially the channels and the spray bottle. Would you consider doing it as a guest post on Science Sparks? xx
Such a cool idea! I have made a mental note of this to try it in the future!
Try it now! Why wait?
Very interesting, my son is doing weather and season themed activities at nursery and I think would be a great thing to do at home to help further the learning. Thanks!
My absolute pleasure, hope you have fun.
What a great activity! We'll be doing this at the weekend now 🙂
Great activity. You're brave pouring food colouring through a straw. I always end up like Lady Macbeth when I make anything with red colouring!
What a lovely way to honour Kerry's memory. x
Im sure Kerry would be very happy to know you were honouring her in this way. Education does not have to just take place in a classroom, and this proves it.
I think this is one which would appeal to older kids too. I could see the triplets enjoying the science in this.
This is such a simple, but brilliant idea. I'm definitely going to try it with Bud soon (we're eating our way through the freezer reserves at the moment so I even have room!) I can't think of a better way of honouring Kerry xx
Aha! It was coloured ice and not honeycomb!
This looks like a lot of fun! I have pinned something similar to try but as of yet haven't. An activity to try at the new house me thinks! Thanks for the inspiration
Ice crystals are so beautiful, aren't they? Kind of magical…
Thanks for sharing this at #Pintorials 🙂