Ice Excavating

This week, we tried ice excavation inspired by Happy Hooligans.  I froze toys, confetti, beads, and other fun bits in a large container over the course of a day layering as I went along.

We used table salt and some colored water I had left over from making colored ice cubes to use on another day.  The ice melted well with just the table salt and the warmish water added with an eye dropper.

As the ice melted E dug out the treasures.  Later as I was cleaning  up I realized that she sorted the items by color by putting them into the colored water that they matched!  What a creative, unprompted idea!

This was a great activity on a hot day but I do think E would have stayed engaged longer if she had another kiddo over to play along.