Whilst building an igloo, one child asked “does sugar melt?”. We decided to ask the class what they thought and discussed how it could melt. Our conclusion was that if ice melted with warm water, could a sugar cube melt? We carried out this investigation and found that just like ice, the sugar cube melted when warm liquid was poured on it.
This led us in to a fun and informative science investigation where, as a group, we discussed how ice begins. Many of the children were able to tell us that water has to freeze in order to become ice. Therefore, we did exactly this and filled some plastic cups with toy fish and water then placed them in the freezer overnight to see what would happen. We also filled a latex glove with water and put it outside in our playground to see if it was as cold outside as it was in our freezer! The next morning, we observed and discussed the changes that had occurred and used the ice in our play whilst observing the changes. This topic gave us the opportunity to discover new words and their meanings, for example, words such as liquid, melt, solid, migrate and hibernation.
In ice trays, we mixed water and food colouring and then added a lolly stick before putting the tray into the freezer. This was for our ice painting activity – we had great fun painting pictures whilst watching the changes that happened to the ice as it melted. We also used paint and collage to create some spectacular snowmen that are now on display in our classroom.
We are looking forward to celebrating Lunar New Year next week.
