Set up a simple ocean sensory activity that is science too! I love exploring the ocean and sharing it with my son. We are still in a learn through play stage so we keep the facts light and the play heavy! We will be visiting the ocean soon and have been using beach and ocean themed activities as a way to discuss what we will see and do when we are away!
ICE MELTING OCEAN SENSORY PLAY SCIENCE
COOL ICE MELTING SCIENCE WITH AN OCEAN SENSORY ACTIVITY
Lately, we have been enjoying ice towers made from milk cartons, check out our beach one here! This time I thought I would use some ordinary food storage containers to mold mini oceans. Again I froze our items in layers so that there would be lots of fun things to unfreeze. Each layer, I added a different color to go along with the ocean. Ours turned out a bit greener than I thought!
SUPPLIES USED:
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Ocean TOOB, Coral Reef TOOB {We were a little flexible with where in the world our ocean was!}
Plastic Containers
Food Coloring
Make sure to allow plenty of time for the freezing process! Smaller containers will be quicker. If you enjoy ice melting activities we have more than 20 Icy Science Ideas!
I set up this activity for my son and his grand mother to do together when she visited! Simply supply everyone with lots of warm water, eye droppers of various sizes and let the fun begin! Simple science and sensory play!
These icy ocean sensory play bowls are filled with shells, whales, starfish, dolphins, sea grass, gems.
This type of sensory play has given way to great language development and imaginative play. The end result of our icy ocean sensory play was a fun ocean sensory bin to play in afterwards. I added a bit of warm water to keep everyones hands from freezing. Liam grabbed a container to make a boat and play sink the boat!
EXTEND THE LEARNING
One simple learning game idea is to have everyone go around and put one item in the boat to see who can sink it first. Talk about the item chosen and its placement in the boat to encourage problem solving and engineering!
I can’t wait to get to the beach this year and talk even more about what we have learned! We plan to take a hands on discovery cruise out of Woods Hole this year. Lots of walks on the beach too. Summer time is a wonderful opportunity for ocean science activities.
Fun Hands On Ocean Sensory Play for Kids!
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Renae says
This is another amazing activity, just like pretty much all of your posts are! I am going to feature this for this weeks Kids Learning Printables Linky Party that I co-host on Every Star is Different. Keep up the good work!
Renae
Amy @ Wildflower Ramblings says
I love this idea! An easy, great summertime imaginative play idea!! We’ll be making these 🙂
Jeanine says
I reeeally love the way the colors in this activity almost look ‘separated, … From here it looks kinda like top layer blue, bottom green. In fact, that’s why I went ahead to read it see how you did that! 😀 My littlest is five now & we’ve still yet to freeze toys or anything but paint (which she’s sick of) — This will go along perfect w/our next set of summer learning activities. I was just wondering WHERE, to find the LINK for post you mention that has your frozen Milk Cartons cuz we’ve run out of milk carton crafts too 😉 THANK YOU Happy Summer
Aimee says
Love this idea but I have a question… does the food coloring stain their fingers (or anything else!) when the ice melts? I’ve been hesitant to try these types of experiments for this reason. Any feedback you have would be most appreciated!
littlebins says
Hi! The food coloring has never stained our fingers. I do not know about clothes though! We make sure we either have it on a surface we don’t care about, take it outside on the grass, or make sure the surface is adequately covered. Placing the ice in a large bin helps collect the water. We have done tons of food coloring ice melts and other projects without much concern for this and I don’t have a very neat little boy, lol!
angela shullo says
This is a great idea – we are doing an under the sea (ariel) birthday theme and I’m going to make these and have teams of 3-4 race to see who can unlock their treasure under the sea first!