Activity with ice

Age-appropriate
: 2 – 4 years (BBK – Juniors and Pre-school group)

Early Years Foundation Stage
: Understanding the world and physical development

Skills trained
: logical thinking, cognitive development, working memory

We enjoy to explore the qualities of ice with the children of Big Ben Kids. They learn that ice is cold, that it makes noise when we smack it with a stick, that it is hard to break. Warm water helps to melt the ice. Ice cracks when we put hot water on it. It melts even faster when we put salt on top. All of those things seem very obvious to adults but it is not obvious to children. Children need to learn it through experience and that is what we do at Big Ben Kids. We find that sensory play with many different materials (ice including) is very important at early stages of children’s development and so we create many sensory play experiences for the children.

Would you like to try this activity at home? It can easily done by freezing some ice cubes (you could hide a little toy in it) or on a larger scale use a baking tray to freeze some water and start exploring with your child(ren)!