Embracing the ice

This is what is looks like outside my house, since an ice storm just went through town yesterday. Downed branches and twigs, too weak to withstand that much ice. A skating rink for a driveway, and front porch. And believe it or not there is an evergreen bush hiding under that snow with the icicles hanging from it.

But instead of worrying about all the ice outside, I decided to embrace the idea of ice and let the kids have a little fun with it inside.

I have been collecting those little silicone shape pans when Target has it in the dollar spot. Actually they are usually $2.50, but I love using them for all kinds of stuff. This time I used the snowflake shaped one, added some water and small animals and put it in the freezer. Once frozen, I put them all in a baggie, put back in the freezer and made some more. I know it probably didn't matter to the kids that the ice cubes were snowflake shaped, but I thought it was cuter that way. :)

I dumped all the ice cubes out in a little tub, poured in a few cups of water, added some spoons, measuring cups, and let the kids go to work trying to set those animals free!

I remembered we had a couple little boats with our bath toys, so I threw those in two. They had fun driving their boats around the "icebergs".

It was fun, SUPER easy, and not too messy at all. It does take a little forethought if you want animals frozen in the ice cubes, and I put two towels under the tub to catch any splashes. The messy factor is really the child and how into it they get!

We were just looking for some entertainment as we were trapped inside, but if you wanted to do a science experiment along with it you could put the ice cubes in different cups. One with no water, one with cold water, one with hot water, and maybe one with salt water. See which animal escapes their ice cube first!