This activity takes a little thought up front, but it’s so easy, not very messy and will keep your child engaged for a long time! Your children have the option to engage in number play or just enjoy the sensory aspect of this icy activity.
Materials:
Numbers- we used THESE , but you could use any numbers that are waterproof. I bet you have some foam bath numbers around or magnetic numbers.
Pom Poms- we used THESE, but you could use any small, uniform manipulative. It doesn’t even need to be a pom pom.
A Container- any old one will do.
Salt- you could use table salt or rock salt. Just use what you have at home already.
Warm Water
Pipettes These are totally optional, but a great tool for fine motor exercise and they are fun to figure out!
Mallet We use these wooden crab mallets for just about everything.
Tongs Again, these are totally optional but a great way to exercise fine motor and to extend the activity.
I set up this activity in our Ikea Flisat Table , but any tubs or large containers will do. You could even do it in the bathtub or on a towel on the floor.
Really, anything goes. You can adapt this activity so easily.
The How-To:
Take your container that you plan to freeze and fill it up with about two inches of water. Drop in a few numbers and pom poms. Add color if you’d like.
Freeze for about an hour.
Pull it out of the freezer and add your next layer. Water, color, numbers and pom poms.
Freeze for another hour.
Pull it out, add color, numbers, etc…
Do this until your container is full and all of your numbers and the coordinating amount of pom poms are all in.
Freezing in layers makes it so that the excavating process is more fun and takes more effort. If you just froze them all in one go, everything would just float to the top.
Once you have a large frozen block of ice filled with numbers and pom-poms, take it out and set it all up!
PRO TIP* I make a bunch of ice blocks once with varying manipulatives, mini toys, nature, etc. Do the work once, have a bunch on hand for the weeks to come.
You could really vary this any way you are comfortable. I set up a bowl of water, a dish of salt and a few small spoons. After a while, Sloane asked for a mallet and some pipettes.
Once she got a number, Sloane instinctively pulled out the coordinating amount of pom poms and began to make a number line. This was exactly my intention!
Even if she hadn’t gone in this direction, there were so many other learning opportunities here.
There is sensory play, number recognition, counting, math, and more. No matter how your child is engaging in this open ended frozen number activity, they are benefitting, and so are you! They will be so busy, you might even get to drink that coffee and catch up with a friend.
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