MAMA Children’s Activity; ‘Melting into spring!’ (#MARCH_PLAY).

For day 3 of #march_play the prompt was Melt! This took a bit of prep the day before but was otherwise very quick and well worth it!

Equipment;

• Silicone cupcake moulds/ice cube tray.
• Petals (I used rose and daffodils – from day 1!).
• Sandwich bag.
• See through Pyrex/plastic dishes.
• Water.
• Pots.
• Food colouring.
• Salt.
• Pipettes.
• Spoon.
• Paper doily.
• Card flowers.
• Puddle suit/apron.
• Wipes/kitchen roll/towels.

The day before doing this activity I put some different petals into silicone cupcake cases and filled them up 2/3 with water then put them in freezer. Once this was frozen I topped them up with more water so the petals were frozen within the block. I also put spare petals in a sandwich bag and put them in the freezer to add more texture to the activity.

I set things up on the tuff tray and dressed by son in his puddle-suit as I knew things would get pretty wet! I also had towels and kitchen roll on hand.

I set up 3 ‘frozen cupcake stations’ – one with extra frozen petals, one with a paper doily and one with little card flowers. I used see through Pyrex dishes so you could see things from all angles and I put the extra bits in the dishes so my son could see the colours mixing on them and see things floating once the frozen cupcakes had melted.

There were then three pots with different coloured water (made by adding a few drops of food colouring to the water) with a pipette in each. Finally there was a pot full of salt to aid the melting!!!

We started by pouring salt onto the ice cupcakes and then pipetting the coloured water onto them and watching the colours mix and the ice melt.

My son then went onto; mix potions and pour these on the ice, pour water on the tuff tray to watch the frozen petals move and watch the water soak up into the kitchen roll!

We left the frozen cupcakes out once my son had had enough but he kept going back and checking on them till they had all melted! He even explained everything to his baby sister who had been watching until it was nap time!

This fun sensory experiment really allowed my son to explore and learn a lot about melting, colour mixing, floating and water movement which was a lot more than I set out to do – amazing what the imagination of a child can create! We even made a little collage with the doily, petals and paper flowers after tidying up!

Don’t forget to share your “melt” activities on Instagram and keep an eye out for more exciting play prompts and shares from all of the hosts: