Ice Sounds Investigation Station for Little Kids

The little guy and I have been moving right along with our Sights & Sounds of Winter theme. This week, it’s all about Outdoor Sights & Sounds and today’s topic was of course Ice.

Ice is water that has frozen. This occurs when water becomes a solid at 0 degrees Celsius or 32 degrees Fahrenheit.

As usual, the Investigation Station was the little guy’s favorite. Why am I not surprised? This fun Science & Nature activity was just one of over 100 that were included in our Teacher Guide for the month.

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A huge thanks to Experience Early Learning (formerly Mother Goose Time) for providing us with their Experience Preschool curriculum for free in exchange for sharing our honest and authentic stories resulting from our personal experiences. It’s been such a huge blessing to us! As always, my opinions on awesome stuff for little kids are 100% my own.

Keep in mind that all preschoolers do things in their own time and on their own terms. What one is ready for, another might not be. Please use your best mama judgement when planning activities for your little kids.

Ice Sounds Investigation Station

Set Up

Set out ice cubes and a variety of other materials (spoons, bowls, trays, water, etc.).
Encourage children to experiment with different ways to make sounds with ice. For example, shake ice in a cup, pour water over the ice, or tap a spoon on the ice.

Big Questions

What sounds can ice make?
What does that sound remind you of?
What happens if the ice gets wet?
Can you use your hands to make ice sounds?

So now that you know what we’re going to be doing, let’s get started. First things first, if you remember our Sound Jars Investigation Station from last week, I made a point of giving the little guy a few different materials to work with this time around too.

We started with an empty bin and two trays of colored ice. I literally just filled both ice cube trays, added random drops of food coloring, and put them in the freezer. There wasn’t much rhyme or reason to it other than we like a little bit of color in our lives. Lol…

Oh, and I grabbed a few different spoons from the kitchen – a wooden one, a metal one, and a rubber one. I thought it’d be fun to experiment with how the sounds differed between the three.

The little guy definitely had a blast exploring different ways to make sounds with ice. He scooped the ice. He tapped the ice. He poured water over the ice and stirred it.

He even put ice in one of his beakers and shook it a bit. Talk about lots of fun!

Leave it to Mother Goose Time to come up with quick and easy activity ideas that can be done with things we already have around the house. I mean, seriously. It’s that simple y’all! A few spoons. Ice. An empty container.

And you’ve got yourself an educational activity for your little kids and enough time to finish up whatever household chore is next on your never-ending to-do list.

Don’t forget to stop by next week if you’re interested in seeing what we’re up to with our Sights & Sounds of Winter theme. And if you missed this year’s preschool homeschool space post, you can check it out here.

Looking for more insight & inspiration? Here are the top 10 most popular posts from The Keeper of the Memories. You’re definitely not going to want to miss these!