Adding colorful ice shapes to the water table offers some interesting water play for toddlers. Toddlers and preschoolers will love scooping up the slippery ice shapes and stirring them around in the water. This simple hands-on learning activity will provide lots of fun with counting, sorting and matching ice shapes.
Water Play with Ice Shapes
We love setting up the water play area (see our huge list of baby and toddler water play activities) and there are so many reasons why we love it. As well as it being heaps of fun, water play also provides calming, sensory and fine motor experiences. Water play is easy to set up with just a plastic bin and water toys such as funnels, pouring cups, and sponges.
You can easily add more learning fun to simple water play with frozen cubes and other ice shapes. This toddler activity is the perfect complement to our color changing water table activity.
How to make your frozen ice shapes
What you need:
One of the great things about this ice play activity is that you don't need to go out and buy any fancy items - in fact everything you need is probably already at home.
Look for containers you have on hand that have different shapes. We used a yogurt container, a divided produce container and small jam pots.
These containers provided us with different sizes as well as different shapes.
You also need:
- Container to put the water in. We like this water table or a plastic container like this one.
- food coloring.
- Plastic Bowls
- Scoops
What to do:
Fill the containers with water.
Add two or three drops of paint or food coloring.
Freeze and you’re done.
So simple!
How to play with the ice shapes in water
Put several different ice shapes in the water. Notice how the coloring seeps out of the shapes as the ice hits the water - this is such a great opportunity for discussion!
You can extend the play by adding other toys and tools to the water play:
- scoops and bowls
- plastic animals and boats
- strainer, shovel, wooden spoon
Initiate conversation by asking your toddler about their play.
How many ice shapes are in the bowl?
Does the ice feel cold?
Is the water changing color?
The addition of ice shapes to a water bin offers opportunities for learning through play.
- Recognize and name the shapes and colors.
- Count and sort the ice shapes.
- Play ‘sink and float’ games with the ice and water toys.
- Observe the ice shapes melting.
While your toddler plays with the cool ice shapes they are gaining fine motor skills and sensory experiences, along with opportunities for simple scientific observations like the melting of the ice and the sinking and floating properties of the ice and water toys. If you enjoyed this activity you will love our huge collection of baby and toddler water play activities - you might even like to take our FREE 10 Day Simple Sensory Bin Challenge. You can also join our Facebook group or follow us on Instagram for more fun toddler activities.
Some more posts you might enjoy are:
Sensory Play Ideas for Toddlers
20 Painting Ideas for Toddlers
About the Author
Heather is a former preschool teacher and founder of preschooltoolkit.com, a website providing early learning resources for teachers and parents. She focuses on creating fun crafts and activities that engage developmental skills while promoting hands-on learning through play. Follow her on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram and Google+