As the cold weather looks set to stay for a while. Let's turn it to our advantage.
Ice Art
These pieces of art are really easy to make. You just need a shallow container, some water, natural objects and some wool or string.
Put a couple of centimeters of water in the bottom of your container. Add your natural materials. if you want to hang them up then put a loop of wool or string into the water before you leave them outside overnight to freeze.
Once they have set then you turn them out of the container and hang outside.
You might want to provide magnifying glasses for the children to use when looking closely at their frozen art.
Balloon Marbles
These are a really easy and very effective make.
All you need are some party balloons, water and food colouring.
Fill the balloon with water (as big as you dare) then holding the balloon by the neck add food colouring.
The easiest way that I have found to add the food colouring is by dipping a cotton bud into the colour and then poking that down the neck of the balloon.
Part of the joy of this activity is that you never know quite what shade of colour your balloon marble is going to be.
Once the ice has set inside the balloon. Snip the tied end off and peel back the rest. They produce some amazing patterns as they melt.
Ice Trough
These make great DIY water troughs in warmer weather but in winter they are great for producing large pieces of ice that children can pick up, touch and explore.
You need a long roll of tin foil, some space and some water.
All you do is to lay the tin foil out flat on the ground and then fold or scrunch up both sides of the sheet to make a wall. Do this for the entire length of the trough.
If you are going to use it as a water channel then leave both ends open. If you are going to create an ice trough, then seal the ends by nipping the foil together.
Fill with water.
You can add various natural or man make items into your trough to freeze. I have done it with cars, boats and small world figures as well as natural materials like leaves, sticks, fircones and berries.
(if using berries ALWAYS use under supervision and check for their safety first)
Once the ice is frozen, peel off the tin foil to reveal your ice stick.
These work well on a large scale like thi,s but you can also make smaller ones with individual children.
No Snow Snowballs
When there is no snow left or it is too hard, you could always try making some of these.
All you need is some tights and some cotton wool.
Just cut off the feet of the tights, stuff them with the cotton wool and then tie or stitch the open end. The higher the denier of the tights the more see through they will be and the whiter they look.
The tights I used here were on offer. 10 pairs for £3.97! They are more American Tan than I would have ideally wanted so my snowballs look like they might have been made with that slightly dirty snow from the side of the road! But ,I am sure you get the idea!
Have fun
Alistair
