This activity was so much fun we did it twice, it is one of the lowest prep activities I have ever done, and it is so versatile for any theme. That is a win-win-win in my books!
First I mixed water and food colouring (2 blue | 1 green) and diluted it until it was the teal colour I wanted. Next I poured it into an oversized ice cube tray and added animals from my favourite Polar Animals set.
I did this activity in the middle of winter, so I froze them outside but you could also leave them in the freezer for a few hours.
This very simple activity gave us a couple hours of open-ended play, starting outside and continuing on inside.
I placed the ice cubes around the yard for us to find/rescue. The girls are at an age where hide and seek style activities are a lot of fun, so this was an easy way to get them engaged with a new activity. Sometimes presenting new activities in a child-led, non-instructional way can be tricky; but this has been working for us!
Together, the girls (2 & 4yrs) and I started brainingstorming ways to save the animals from the ice. They wanted to try warm water, so I ran inside for a bucket of water and a turkey baster that I grabbed from the dollaratore for sensory play. This method was fun to explore and might be better for older kids, but we were too cold and it would have taken too long.
I set up a nice warm bath for 2 chilly toddlers and their arctic animal ice-cubes. They thought it was so much fun saving the animals and playing with them in the bath!
Tip: I dumped all the animals into the tub at once, which was fun but they melted reallt fast. It would have lasted longer if I set them up along the edge of the tub and saved one or two at a time.
We all loved this activity so much we did it again, this time we melted the ice in buckets of warm water instead of the bathtub.
Click here for the DIY Arctic Slide - Sensory Bin!
MATERIALS:
• large ice cube tray
• acrtic animals, or other small figurines your children are interested in
• food colouring
Have you tried rescuing toys from ice cubes or the Arctic Slide?! I would love to see how they turned out!
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