Do you want to get creative with science? If you haven’t thought about doing preschool science activities or as part of an early childhood program, you definitely should! We love simple science and it can be really playful too! Our magnetic ice science activity below is the perfect combination for learning and playing.
How To Set Up Magnetic Ice Play
There are so many fun ways of using blocks of frozen water for play and learning with young kids. Our magnetic ice activity below is all about exploring ice and magnets. Here we have combined our love for icy sensory play and hands-on fun with magnets!
You will need:
- A Magnetic wand
- Paper Clips and assorted objects that can be picked up with a magnetic wand!
- Ice Cube Trays
Instructions:
STEP 1. Place your items like paper clips, pipe cleaner pieces, magnetic discs, balls, screws etc into ice cube trays! We use this magnet set for everything!
STEP 2. Fill the ice cube trays with water and freeze.
STEP 3. When frozen, you can empty the cubes onto a try or into a baking dish.
Now you have a cool ice magnet play activity for simple science!
Our Exploration of Magnets
He was more than excited to see if the magnetic wands would work on the ice cubes. Some worked better than others and as some melted they were also a little easier to pick up!
We could make them spin around very fast too by waving the wand in a circular motion above the ice cube. The slippery surface of the ice to the glass was perfect.
Magnet ice play for science learning is very hands-on! There was lots of attempts to see how many he could pick up at one time!
I then positioned the baking dish up onto two bowls and showed him how he could use the wand to move the ice cubes from below. I challenged him to a sorting competition.
I left 6 ice cubes in the dish. 3 with paper clips and 3 with magnetic balls frozen inside. Could he sort them and move 3 of the same to one side and 3 of the same to the other? Very fun and tricky too!
Printable Magnet Activity Worksheets
More Fun Ways To Play With Magnets
We love helping our kiddos learn in a multi-sensory way with these fun hands-on activities below. See our list of preschool magnet activities.
- Magnet Painting
- Magnetic Sensory Bottle
- Magnetic Slime
- Magnetic Maze
- What’s Magnetic What’s Not
- Floating Magnet Experiment
Printable Preschool Project Pack
Get ready to explore this year with our growing Preschool STEM Bundle.
What’s Included:
There are 12+ fun preschool themes to get you started. This is an ” I can explore” series! Science, STEM, Math, and more.
Each unit contains approximately 15 activities, with instructions and templates as needed. Hands-on activities are provided to keep it fun and exciting. This includes sensory bins, experiments, games, and more! Easy supplies keep it low cost and book suggestions add the learning time.
Such a great science activity! I am featuring this in an ice science round up tomorrow. Thank you for sharing!
Thanks!