It has been a cold winter. We've been stuck indoors a lot. When you're a kid, and you see snow outside, you don't understand why you're unable to play in it. And, I wonder ... why shouldn't you be able to play in it? Here are some of the playing we've done so far this year ....
Color The Snow(man)
Have you used markers in the snow? Pretty cool. While this was fun for my young preschool/kindergarten aged children, it may be better for older children. I was able to make pictures in the snow - fun!
Then we decided to make a snowman!
My little guy squirted it with food coloring.
It looked pretty cool!
Easy clean-up! Rinse it away in the sink/tub with warm water.
It was waaay below zero here (30 below). We couldn't wait to fill up a big tub of water and freeze it outside!
We put a blue fizzy bath tablet in before we froze the water. My son chose to play with the sorting bears on the ice. They played leap frog and had circle time.
When the ice broke, we added colored containers (boats). Then he wanted the water to be green, so we added a yellow tablet.
We added really warm water to the tub because the tablet was not dissolving in the cold water. This worked out well because I didn't really like him having his fingers in freezing cold water. He didn't want to stop playing.
Baking Soda Snow
Our snow wasn't very packy throughout our weeks of below zero weather. I didn't like the way the snow turned out when we'd bring it in and mist it with warm water, and it was not fun with bare fingers! So ... we mixed water with Baking Soda. SO COOL!
Speaking of cool, we stuck it outside for a little while so it would feel like real snow. The kids said they thought it was the real stuff, but they didn't know why it wasn't melting.
Snow Volcano!
We made a snow volcano. In the middle was baking soda. I added a few drops of food coloring to the container before pouring the Baking Soda.
The kids poured in the vinegar!
Very cool!
Color Mixing
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A little color mixing in snow. Liquid water colors and eye droppers.
Ice and Salt Play
Ice blocks Salt and food coloring.
Examining the effects of salt on ice.
Adding food coloring.
Taking a closer look.
Beautiful!
Some more play ideas:
Ball up some socks and have a snowball fight.
Put wax paper on bottoms of feet and "ice skate" on the carpet.
Grab some cotton balls, spoons and some buckets. Scoop up the snow balls and balance them on the spoon as you race to get them in the bucket.
Have fun!!
