Preschool Science: "COOL" Ice Art for Little Hands

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We had so much fun exploring ice & water last week!

The Lil Divas were sad to see our theme come to an end.

Of course even though we have moved on to our newest theme (zoo animals) - the curiosity, explorations & fun never end.

The last activity I would like to share was a "cool" one! :)

We combined a little Science Activity + Art and came out with some "Cool" Ice Art.
(This activity was inspired by a post I saw on The Artful Parent)

What You Need:

balloons

water

measuring tape

food coloring

paper & pen (for older preschoolers)

*For younger tots you can just skip ahead to the art part of the activity if you don't think they'd enjoy or get the experiment part. Honestly my Lil Divas had so much fun with this - you must try it!* 

What We Did:

1. We filled up balloons with water and then measured them.

2. I made a simple data collection table and we recorded measurements for each balloon.

3. We put the water balloons in the freezer overnight

4. The next day the Lil Divas were running to check on their balloons!

They were so excited to see that they were frozen and so heavy!!!

5. We measured the water balloons and found that they were bigger!

The solid ice had expanded the balloons size!

The Lil Divas were most impressed with how much heavier they were in ice form.

I really wished we had weighed them so we knew just how much heavier they got!

That would definitely be an addition I'd suggest to anyone that is going to try this!

We had these large blocks of ice & the Lil Divas loved playing with them!

I just knew we had to do somehting with them and the Oldest Diva suggested we paint them. I'm sure our frozen paint activity had her mind going & I was wondering how we could do it.

Then I remembered an activity I'd recently seen about ice & salt! :)

So, out came the salt & the fun began!

6. Pour salt directly onto ice block.

Notice the Lil Divas were very generous with the salt. :)

Instantly the ice started to crackle and lots of little craters were formed!

The Lil Divas were in awe.

7. Drop food coloring into the holes

Again, notice we were very liberal with the food coloring.

I tried to get them to just add a few drops but they were not to be stopped! :)



Can you blame them?

Look at how pretty this looks.



As the food coloring slipped through the holes and combined with the melting ice it created a wonderful work of art to behold. The inside of the ice was alive with color.



We left our works of art out for the entire day.

The Lil Divas enjoyed checking up on it and watching it melt.

A very "cool" art project!

Bern