Fun with Light: Water and Color

This was such a big hit! Water, color, and light? How could it not be awesome!

Again, you need a light table or projector – I prefer a projector because it has so many uses (and you can usually pick them up for under $20). Then I found a plastic container with compartments. Any plastic container will work fine, as long as it's see through!

We started out with basic colors and gave the boys droppers, medicine syringes and no other instruction. The boys started moving colors and mixing water.  Eventually, they added more water and more color.

This was a really fun open ended activity. The boys could do whatever they wanted with the colors. Eventually they filled up the entire container and we had so much fun we decided to freeze the container and make colored ice cubes for a fun afternoon activity!

Before we froze the water, we put little toys and letters in the trays so we could break up the cubes and find treasures. This was a great boredom buster for a cold or rainy day. Be sure to check out my next post when we dabble with light and ice!

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!