We just did a great little activity that my kids, from ages three to seven, loved. It involved math, science and reading and it only cost me $1.
I filled a pie pan with water for each of them and sprinkled in plastic letters or numbers from a dollar store magnetic set. Each pan of water was geared towards what each child is currently working on.
I left the pans of water outside to freeze overnight, and this morning we got to work excavating.
Here’s the Science Lesson:
I asked them a few questions to get them started, but they took it from there.
How do you get frozen objects out of a block of solid ice? First they decided to try using tools: a butter knife, a sharper knife (don’t worry, it’s a kid-safe knife). That chipped a bit of ice away but not much and the letters were in danger of getting stabbed and broken.
What do people use to melt ice on sidewalks and roads? Salt! They loved pouring salt on the ice.
Then they wondered, would pepper melt ice? They decided yes, because it’s spicy, so they tried it. No, pepper does not melt ice, they concluded.
How about pouring on warm water? Yup, that helps a lot.
The most effective thing, they discovered, was to run the block of ice under hot water in the sink.
Then they got to work playing with what they’d found in the ice. Firefly, my 7 year old made multiplication equations. The Unifix cubes on the left are what he used to figure out the problem.
He tried to come up with as many combinations as possible with the numbers that were in the ice, then we added more numbers. Lots of great multiplication practice. Now, had I asked him to do this in writing, on paper, oh the whining, can’t you just hear the whining? On the other hand, “dig plastic numbers out of ice and make equations” got this reaction: ”This is so cool, Mom!”
The Queen Bee, my 5 year old, made up words from the -ot family with her treasures from the ice.
She loved this and immediately wanted more magnets to work on more word families. She spent a lot of time doing this. After -ot, I gave her -at, -it, -in, and an. Whenever she put a letter in front that didn’t spell an actual word, we called them silly words and sounded them out anyway (gat, uin, wot, etc.)
Love Bug, my 3 year old, got a handful of random letters to work on letter recognition. He pretty much didn’t want to play with his letters or make any guesses as to what they were once he freed them from the ice. It was more about the process of getting them out for him. That’s okay. I just exclaimed excitedly, here and there, “Oh, look, you got a letter D out of the ice!” and “Wow, now you have a letter P, like p-p-p-popcorn and p-p-p-purple!”
He very much enjoyed sprinkling salt on the ice, running the ice block under water, and freeing the letters.
The day prior to freezing the letters and numbers in the ice, we put them into the little infant blow-up pool, along with some water, and went fishing:
That was fun, too. Love Bug loved fishing the letters and out sticking them to our magnetized door. His siblings loved spelling words with them and helping him get the letters out. They were a little tricky with these fishing rods. Next time we will attach a larger magnet to the end of the string. This one couldn’t support the weight of some of the letters.
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I love it! I’ll have to try that one – my preschool sidekick would especially enjoy the attacking-with-implements part of it, I imagine. Thanks for sharing!
Hi!
I found your blog a few days ago and I love it!! I’ve tried a fancy nancy unit with my girl and she adores it.
Thanks for sharing great homeschooling ideas!! I am in search of penpals for my 7
years old boy and my 6 years old girl, if you are interested let me know ok.
Sylvia from Spain
Wonderful science experiment for little hands.
Hi! Visiting from TGIF! I love all of the learning with the letters and ice. I recently did an ice activity, but this one rocks! I will be trying this very soon with my boys! Thanks for sharing!
Trina
http://www.teachingmyblessings.blogspot.com
Stopping by from TGIF!!! This is a GREAT science activity – definitely adding this to a lesson plan. Thanks for sharing!
~Bekah @SonshineTotSchool.blogspot.com
I love, love, love this activity! I’ll have to put the pie pans in the freezer. (Or maybe we can try sitting them out first… another science experiment?!?!)
I love the idea with the ice…gonna have to do that one for sure!
Love this! I love how the end project was geared to each child. Thanks for sharing!
That is too cute…Pepper will melt the ice because it is spicy! We have this one planned for our older kids too! Thanks for sharing…
I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this!! What was so wonderful was that you had them explore how to get the numbers out of the ice. Your questioning is fabulous– and I had to smile when they tried pepper because it was “spicy.” (After all, spicy things are “hot,” right?!)
This is a fantastic idea!! I will definitely be trying this out. I found you through the Toys in the Dryer link up. I also write a homeschool blog and just started a blog roll there. I would love you to,link up your blog!
Http://teachbesideme.blogspot.com
Thanks!!
Thanks. Sent you an email.
Too funny! We recently did an ice melting experiment too. The funny thing is my kids also tried crushed red peppers =-) Thanks for linking up to TGIF! Have a GREAT week,
Beth =-)
What a great way to link them all together! My kids would love this, of course I’d have to clear out freezer space………
Thanks for linking up to Science Sunday!
I just wanted to stop by and let know you were featured as the most clicked on link at TGIF this week (http://livinglifeintentionally.blogspot.com/2012/02/tgif-linky-party-15.html)! Thanks for sharing with all of us!! So come stop by, grab an I was Featured button, and link up what you’ve been up to this week.
Beth =-)
Just a quick THANK YOU for linking up last week with Thrifty Thursday, and I hope to see you again this week! I LOVE these ideas! It’s too hot here to freeze overnight (most nights, anyway) but we could totally do this in the freezer!
http://www.playingwithwords365.com/category/thrifty-thursday/