Fun with Light: Ice

Wow! What could be more awesome than ice and light. 

  In my last post, we played with water and food coloring and decided to freeze the tray. 

We put tiny objects in colored ice cubes: like alphabet letters and tiny toys. Then we froze it and after a few hours pulled out the colored ice cubes. 

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These were super slippery and cold! It felt like Jell-O. 

This would be perfect for a hot summer day.

They looked really cool, and the treasures inside turned out really great. I wanted to make blocks that they could stack, and we got some five high, but we didn't freeze the cubes on a flat surface so they were pretty wobbly. I'd like to try this again and see if we can build a little igloo. Today they were more interested in breaking open the cubes and collecting the treasures inside. I have five boys and they'll take advantage of any opportunity they can get to smash something!

This activity was a big hit, literally. And you don't need a light table or projector for this to work, but the light makes it look really cool!

Fun with Light: Shapes and Colors

  Light is so awesome! It makes even the simplest toys pop out. I've been wanting to make a light table for years, but just bought a projector for $10 and found it works great. I like it better than a light table, actually, because it shows up on the wall too!

Today we got out the projector and my toddler and preschooler tried outlining the shapes with a marker.

Here, they are sorting the shapes into colors. Then by shape and size.

Jonathan's favorite was definitely trying to color the shapes! 

This is a great way to teach shapes, fractions, colors, and so many other things! Adding a little light makes all the difference!