Ice Activities for Preschool at Home Unit: Week 20

Originally, in my weekly unit theme plan for this school year, I had planned on doing a unit on vehicles this week. However, with the weather being super cold here in Michigan, I thought it would be more appropriate (and fun!) to do more ice activities for preschool this week!

You can download the updated weekly unit theme plan here.

This week’s Ice Lesson Plan for Preschool has lots of hands-on activities and we will be doing a ice sensory bin activity as well. I’m super excited for this week’s Ice activities for preschool at home!

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Ice Activities for Preschool

I have planned several activities that involves ice cubes, so it’s a good idea to freeze some ice cubes in advance. And as I type this, I realize I need to go make some ice cubes ASAP 🙂

Day 1

On our first day of our Ice unit, we will be doing two activities that are shorter. Both of these are more “science-y” and they look like so much fun!

Day 1 Part 1: Ice String Magic Science Experiment

I’ve seen this on several Instagram accounts, and it looks amazing!

Step 1: In a bowl of water, place several ice cubes.

Step 2: Dip a piece of string in the water and gently place it on top of the ice cubes.

Step 3: Sprinkle some salt on top of the string on the ice cubes.

Step 4: Wait for 10-15 seconds, and the string should have adhered onto the ice cubes.

Step 5: Be amazed as you lift up the string with the ice cubes attached!

Day 1 Part 2: Frozen Bubbles

I saw this activity on Housing A Forest and had to try it out! Both my boys are a big fan of bubbles, so I know they will be excited about this activity.

We will be making our own bubble solution using the recipe on Housing A Forest, and go outside to blow bubbles and watch them freeze. I hope it’ll work out!

Day 2: Colored Ice Painting Activity

I saw this on Instagram @mothercould, and I’ve been wanting to try it out!

Step 1: Fill an ice tray with water.

Step 2: Drop a couple drops of food coloring of choice into each ice cube container.

Step 3: Place a popsicle stick into each ice cube container.

Step 4: Place in freezer and let it freeze completely.

Step 5: Paint!

The final product of the colored ice painting came out so nice! The colors were super pigmented, and I plan on using these for valentine cards!

However, this colored ice painting activity was actually a lot messier than I thought it would be. So definitely keep that in mind!

My boys wore their art smocks and that thankfully kept their clothes clean.

Day 3: Free the Animals

I got these little arctic animal figurines and will be freezing them in water. You can even add a few drops of blue food coloring in.

We have limited space in our freezer, so we took advantage of the cold Midwest winter, and left it on our balcony to freeze.

Once it’s completely frozen, kids can sprinkle some salt and use droppers or syringes (we use the ones that come with medicine) to melt the ice and “free” the animals. Kids can also use various tools like spoons or toy hammers as well.

This was by far our boys’ favorite activity of the week. They loved it so much, we did this 4 times! And each time, it kept them occupied for about 30 minutes, because they had to free each animal from the ice.

I highly recommend this activity!

Day 4: Make Ice and then Build an Igloo

Even though our preschoolers are young, I thought it is still an important concept to understand that water freezes into ice.

So I thought it would be fun to get our kiddos to pour water into the ice cube tray, and then place them in the freezer (or outside), and then check on them later to see that the water turned into ice cubes. (It will probably be best to do this portion the day before using the ice cubes.)

Afterwards, we will use those ice cubes to build an igloo!

I think it would also be fun to make this into a sensory bin and add some of the arctic animal figurines from Day 3 and also add some blue glass beads.

Day 5: Colorful Ice Marbles

I saw this activity on Instagram @1000hoursoutside and I thought it would be a great outdoor activity, especially in the snow!

We will make colorful ice marbles by placing water and food coloring into silicone sphere molds and freezing them overnight.

Then take them out and play with them in the snow! Even if you don’t have snow where you live, I think it would still be fun to take them outside and watch the colorful ice marbles melt.

Books About Ice

Ice is Nice!

Cold Snap

Over and Under the Snow

The Three Snow Bears

Snowballs

More Books About Snow and Winter

I have a whole post with loads of fun books about snow and winter for preschoolers. Hope you’ll check it out!

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A post shared by Rebecca | Disc Mommyhood (@discoveringmommyhood)