Age
⚙ 1.5 years and up
Time and Place
⚙ Any time of day
⚙ Spring or summer
⚙ Indoors or outdoors
Materials
⚙ Water
⚙ Ice cubes
⚙ A bin to hold water
Optional Materials
⚙ Ice cube trays
⚙ Materials to make ice cube trays: egg cartons, muffin trays, etc.
⚙ Other toys or objects: containers, bath toys, sponges, spoons, measuring cups
⚙ Food colouring
Safety
⚙ Supervise children at all times
⚙ Take extra precautions when playing with water or cold substances
Instructions
Play-based Context
Place water in a bin or sensory table and let children play with the water. Add ice cubes and discuss how the water temperature changes. Add other objects to encourage exploration. To make the transition from solid to liquid more obvious, use coloured ice cubes (add a few drops of food colouring before freezing).
To nurture a toddler's interest in water, educators added ice cubes to the water table and talked about the changes in temperature.
Questions You May Ask
⚙ How many ice cubes do you see?
⚙ What is happening to the ice cubes?
⚙ What else could we use to make ice cubes?
⚙ How can we make the water warmer?
Related Children's Books
⚙ The Snowflake: A Water Cycle Story by Neil Waldman
⚙ All the Water in the World by George Ella Lyon and Katherine Tillotson
