If Im not mistaken…

Here’s a fun kid’s activity which will motivate you to get out in the cold weather—making snow and ice sculptures.  Get out your ice cube trays, plastic food containers, pails and even your big recycle bins!

Have fun mixing food dyes in water and then pouring the liquids into all your various containers.  Leave the containers outside over night to freeze solid.  I found the food coloring really sinks to the bottom when it freezes.  Next time I’ll experiment with making snow slush and adding the dye into that, instead of straight H2O. 

Getting the ice out of the molds can be tricky.  I broke a couple containers trying to bang the ice out.  My ice trays popped the pieces out fairly easy but the bigger containers needed to be soaked in warm water for a minute to remove the ice.

I thought the small colored ice pieces looked like jewels.  My son thought our finished snow castle looked like a gingerbread house.

The biggest snow block we made from using a recycling bin.  A couple years ago, I noticed someone had made a whole fort from these large snow blocks.  Of course, it’s nice having at least two bins to create something so big.

Before decorating the sculpture with our ice pieces, I dumped some water over it.  This made our snow jewels sink in nicely and stick well too.  (They also stuck well to my fleece gloves.  Yikes)  I also poured more water after we were finished, hoping that the castle will freeze and last the rest of the winter.  Not sure yet if I’ll be out with a feather duster next time the snow falls on the ice kingdom.

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