This morning my two youngest children had a lot of fun painting with ice cubes to go with our study of the letter I.
We actually made the ice cubes yesterday and they were frozen and ready for painting this morning. Here’s what we did.
I put 6 drops of food coloring per compartment of an ice cube tray. Then I added some water so that they were almost full.
We put a piece of aluminum foil over the top and I used a sharp knife to make a small hole in the center of each ice cube compartment.
Then we inserted a popsicle stick into each hole and put the ice cube tray into the freezer.
I placed a large sheet of freezer paper on our kitchen table for each of my little ones and gave them the ice cubes.
Note: Freezer paper is great because it is very strong and has a plastic coating on the bottom which means that water won’t soak all the way through it.
This painting activity kept my children entertained for a good 20 minutes as they designed their masterpieces.
My idea of using popsicle sticks was twofold. I thought it would be easier to paint with the ice cubes if they had handles. Plus, I thought it would keep my kids’ hands neater.
It would have worked perfectly if the kids hadn’t painted their hands and touched their papers.
Oh, well. They had fun and who cares about a little paint on a kid’s hand, right? They washed up just fine.
However, Janna decided to eat soap bubbles while she and Joseph were washing their hands. Maybe she was trying to compensate for the fact that she had tried to paint her lips with the ice cubes.
Just keeping it real here. 🙂
Joseph also painted his letter I folder with the ice cubes.
My kids loved this activity and we will definitely have to try it again. I’m not sure that it would work well outside, though, because the ice cubes melted fairly quickly in our house and I only have the heat set at 69 degrees.
While I chose to use food coloring for our ice cubes I have read that some people have frozen actual paint. I am curious to know how that would turn out.
Have you ever made ice cube paints?
