What You Will Need
- a plastic container with a lid to help avoid spills
- a sheet of paper and markers ( clip board is optional)
- toys and doodads like pom poms, crayons, beads, blocks and corks
How to Prepare the Activity
- Start by making a simple chart for predictions.
Time To Experiment
Ask your child to predict if the toy will float and freeze on the top of the water or sink and freeze on the bottom. Sort everything first and then add them to the water. After they are in the water a while ask your child if they think their predictions are correct. My daughter immediately noticed that the crayon started out floating but soon sank. Also the pom poms were floating happily for a while but if they absorbed water they started to sink. When they are done exploring add the lid on and pop the whole thing in the freezer overnight.
The next day it’s time to explore the results. Feel the ice, notice what’s sticking out of the ice on top and then flip it over and carefully pop the iceberg out of the container. Discuss what’s frozen in the bottom of the block of ice. My daughter loved this. She explored it much longer than I expected and I was thrilled.
You can take this one step further by adding in a journal to draw pictures of the predictions and results. You can also pop the block of ice back into the container and using warm water “free” all the items.