Need a super simple activity to throw together and keep the kids occupied for a LONG time? Try this! You can customize it any way you want, but today we’re doing a Valentine’s version.
All you need are:
- baking tray (any size or shape will work) – I am using a Hello Kitty cake pan!
- water
- food coloring
- toys
- other loose parts (use anything you have at home!)
For mine I filled it up with water, added some red food coloring, red crinkle paper and some dino toys. Then just place the whole thing into the freezer and its all ready to go the next day!
When you are ready to play, simply provide a few tools for your kids to melt the ice:
- warm water in squeeze bottles (or droppers)
- salt with a spoon
- tongs to pick out toys
- deeper tray to place the ice into and hold water
For younger toddlers who may not have as long of an attention span, try adding salt directly into the squeeze bottles of warm water. This will help melt the ice even faster so they can free their toys faster. Here’s another trick for them – use less water when freezing so that they don’t need to work through bricks of ice to get to the toys.
My daughter LOVES this activity and something like this can keep her occupied for 1.5 hours – 2 hours. It took me 2-3 minutes to set up and you can change this up in so many ways! This is definitely one of our favorite activities so give it a try!
There are so many learning opportunities here:
- fine motor skills with squeezing those bottles
- cause and effect (melting the ice)
- hand eye coordination (scooping the salt and aiming water at the toys)
- language skills (talk about words like melt, free, warm, cold)
Let us know if you give it a try!
