There are not a lot of good words that start with i. We ended up with I is for Ice… which was actually a ton of fun!
There are a lot of science-y things that you can do with ice. So we did some hands-on learning–the best kind. Scott prepared a beautiful powerpoint showcasing all the different forms that ice can take.
Some of which went right over Lanae’s head (like Glaciers). However, she found a lot of the powerpoint exciting and fascinating. Like the different kinds of snowflakes and icicles.
After the powerpoint, we did a little hands-on experimenting with ice. Super simple. Lanae got a big bowl and used the fridge ice dispenser to help me fill it up.
Then she took it to the table and started playing. The only rule was that the ice could not touch the floor.
I got out different containers and cookie sheets for her to use. One of the dishes we used had dividers and so I put different temperatures of water in it so that she could experiment further.
We talked about how the ice melted faster in the hot water than in the cold water. And how the ice ended up making the hot water cold. All pretty basic concepts… but they are kind of hard for a little kid to understand.
After a day of experimenting with ice. We made ice volcanoes… Super easy and fun, too!
Lanae mixed the baking soda and water mixture and she added a little bit of yellow food coloring too.
You can get full instructions here.
But this is the basic run-down.
Mix water and baking soda… fill a lined container with the mixture and freeze! Of course, you need to make sure that there is something in your container (like a ball) that the liquid can freeze around so that you can pour vinegar onto it to make it bubble and fizz! We just used our food processor lined with a ziploc bag. That’s what you call improvising!
Then we put it in the freezer and over the course of the next 24 hours continued to check on the liquid as it turned to ice. She was amazed! Every time we checked on it, it was a little bit harder.
It’s kind of funny watching a kid get excited about something so simple (liquid turning to ice).
Play-time!
We had fun watching our volcano bubble and fizz and melt all over our driveway… You can see that Owen is starting to get more involved in our lessons, too! It is so fun having them so close together.
To make our week complete we watched Frozen. It fits, right?
Check out more fun from the ABC Series…
