Frozen Fun

It has been too freakishly cold around these parts. We haven't been able to play outside or even leave the house for days (partly because of sickness). We finally decided to stop whining about the ridiculous cold and start taking advantage of it. So in school today, we did a couple of frozen fun experiments to learn about the properties of water.

First, since the temperature was all of 17 degrees outside, we decided to try to make our very own ice cubes. Each kiddo had a tupperware of water. They put many drops of many assorted colors of food coloring in their water to make scrumptious colors. This involved a lot of stirring and splashing (and mopping up). Next, each Guy chose a few tiny toys to put in their water. We were able to talk about items that sink and float. Once our tupperwares were just perfect, we set them out on the back porch to start the freezing process.

I think one boy or the other peeked at the tupperwares every 30 minutes all day long. They were very diligent ice cube watchers! It really was fascinating to watch the ice crystals form, and eventually both tupperwares had a thin layer of ice covering the top. We left them outside all day long.

This is where the story turns tragic. After supper, we brought the dishes inside to study them more thoroughly. The tiny toys were frozen in place. The ice was thick. We assumed they were frozen all the way through. Owen was intrigued with smelling his ice, funny kid that he is. He thought the food coloring smelled absolutely delicious. He was inhaling deep whiffs. Then, he tipped his tupperware up to his face so he could smell it all the better. Sadly, we found out the hard way that his water had not frozen completely. Icy cold water flooded Owen's face and soaked his clothes when the ice broke and the unfrozen water poured everywhere. Poor guy. He cried and cried as we peeled his freezing cold clothes off and hustled him to the bath tub.

Next up:

Snow painting!

We mixed up some water colored with food coloring, grabbed our paintbrushes and headed outside to our snow-covered porch.

We had a great (very cold!) time decorating our porch and driveway with beautiful pictures and bright colors. It worked surprisingly well!

We didn't last too long out in the cold though. Before long we hustled in to warm up with our cozy blankets!