Ice Castles

Bug is 31 months old

Fun activity for a Moms Club playdate outside

To have fun building with blocks

I hosted a playdate for the Moms Club that I am a member of & I wanted to get the kids outside (since I'm so bad about that normally.) I did this activity when I taught kindergarten (Thanks Bonnie!). I told all the moms to bring a few ice bricks with food dye in them and I would have some, so we'd have a good amount for an ice castle.

Mistake #1: I completely forgot to make my bricks until 10pm the night before. I put the bricks on my front step thinking that it would be cold enough to freeze overnight...

 

 I thought wrong! At 7am, I had cold water sitting on my doorstep! I put them in my freezer, but I knew that wouldn't be long enough.

Time for Plan B: I got water bottles out and put food dye in them and the kids "painted" the snow. It was fun. I need to get some better water bottles (lower quality) for this to do it again, but I will!

Fast forward a few days... The ice bricks are still in my freezer & now I need the room for food! We had a playdate with Ella's friend (we'll call her Sweetie), so I took that opportunity to try again.

Mini Mistake #2: I took the bricks out of their tupperware the night before & put them on step... then they froze to the step! I was able to chip them free using a shovel, but I had Bug & Sweetie wanting to help, so I was nervous while doing it! Everyone came away with all extremities still attached (except parts of the ice bricks).

Mistake #3: The big bricks were too big for the girls to stack by themselves, so I ended up building ice castles while the girls brought me bricks & watched. They put the little bricks on top, but it wasn't exactly what I imagined... oh well. I think they still had fun.

 

When we were all done the girls were very excited & showed everyone our ice castles!

Review:

I'll do this again... when Bug is older. I guess there is a reason I did this with kindergarteners! I could also use smaller tupperware to make it easier for littler kids.

Source:

Like I mentioned above, I did this when I taught kindergarten. We counted it as a science activity because we talked about properties of freezing water... how it changes... etc. I did nothing of this with Bug, but you could, so I'm categorizing it as a science activity. 

 

Note: As I'm typing up this post, Bug saw it & said "[Sweetie] & [Bug] make ice castles," so I guess she enjoyed herself!