Description & Learning Objectives
Ice play provides a thrilling sensory experience. With the varying textures of ice, along with the cold temperature, this activity helps stimulate children’s growing senses and fosters their sensory exploration and cognitive development. Ice play also offers an opportunity for social interaction and communication as the children engage in collaborative ice exploration together.
Materials
- Small manipulatives
- Water
- Molds
- Freezer
Observations and Findings
For our version of this activity, we decided to fill up some balloons with water and freeze them to make an egg like shape. We also placed some silicone dinosaur manipulatives inside to freeze with the water. This provides children a fun way to experience and explore something they may have seen or heard of on a daily basis, but may have never had first hand experience with.
Ice play helps support and further children’s development in sensory exploration, sensory discrimination, and sensory motor integration. As children explore the cold, slippery surface with their hands and warm water, they refine their fine motor skills such as grip strength, hand eye coordination, and dexterity. They are able to use all of their senses to explore the ice, and then compare it to the other things they have experienced before. For example, holding a round ice sphere vs holding a ball. They may have similarities, but children will be able to differentiate between the two and the way they handle each object will be different as well.
We also provided children with a squeeze bottle filled with warm water. They poured warm water onto the ice and watched it melt. As children observe the gradual melting of the ice, they are introduced to basic scientific concepts, such as changes in states of matter and cause-and-effect relationships. The children get a better understanding of how some things may change in not only their physical appearance, but their consistency and texture also. Having a goal of trying to get dinosaurs out of the frozen ice by melting it also encourages children to use their problem-solving skills. They work out different ways of making the ice melt and how to do it at a faster rate, such as squeezing the warm water vs using the heat from their hands. Overall, ice play is an enriching and enjoyable activity that promotes physical, cognitive, and social development in children while sparking curiosity and imagination.
