Ice Melt Science Experiment
Preschool Water Science & Saturday Science Blog Hop
We love water themed science experiments!
This time we thought we would add some water colors to really illustrate what happens when salt erodes the ice and prevents it from refreezing! We even turned it into a cool painting activity as the ice melted and the colors ran together. The science of why ice prevents water from refreezing is a little difficult to explain to my preschooler but watching what happens and talking about what he sees is an excellent start to future experiments!
Quick and Easy Set Up:
Since it is still fall I thought I would use our pumpkin ice-cube tray and make pumpkin cubes! I don’t think it mattered much to Liam but they were cute. He actually thought they looked like igloos which may have been more appropriate! I let him pop them out into a baking dish to contain the mess. I also prepared a dish of salt and water colors for testing and observing!
Testing The Ice Melt Science Experiment!
The first part of the experiment was simply with the salt and ice pumpkin-gloos! Great idea to break out a magnifying glass. He could watch the salt work at the ice. We didn’t really talk about ions mixing with water to change temperature to prevent refreezing, but you could! We did talk about how water can be both a solid and a liquid! Now to better illustrate what is happening between the salt and the ice, we used some water color paints (food coloring works too). You can really see where the color goes and how much the salt has changed the ice!
Extend the Ice Melt Science Experiment!
Liam decided he wanted to paint with the watercolors, ice and salt. I happily obliged and got him a large piece of paper. He took the partially melted hunks of ice out of the dish and painted with them on the paper. He put more salt on the paper and used the water colors to paint the salt. We watched the salt absorb the paint and make cool effects
The ice of course continued to melt and he added more salt and more paint!
He painted for quite a while until there was no more white space and quite a few puddles!
Please Join us for the Saturday Science Blog Hop!
Please visit all our great science experiments! Blog hops spread the love. I will pin all your great posts to my Science Experiments Pinterest Board too!
Emma says
Science and art combined! My daughter loves watching ice melt with the help of salt, but I think that’s just because she likes being able to shake the salt without restriction! 🙂
littlebins says
Glad salt was only .79! We used a lot and we made a little bit of mess but it was great!
Katie @ Happily Ever Mom says
Such a great idea! I can’t wait to do this with my preschooler this week!
littlebins says
Probably the one type of activity my son always asks for is science experiments! Hope you enjoy it too!
Jill says
This is a cute variation on the ice melt experiment that looks like a lot of fun too! Thank you for sharing and for linking up this week to the Thoughtful Spot Weekly Blog Hop.
iGameMom says
Love the experiment. Thanks for sharing at Mom’s Library. I am featuring this on iGameMom “18 fun Science activities for kids of all ages”.
littlebins says
Awesome thanks! I love science experiments!