Beat the Heat: Freeze their Toys!

Wednesday, July 25, 2018
I live in Florida. It is hot. It is humid. And for some reason, my kids still want to go outside. I try to convince them of the joys of air conditioning, but those little rascals still want to be outside. So, I tried to come up with some ideas to help us beat the heat and stay cool while having fun outdoors. 
I am pretty excited to share with you one of these ideas. Ready for it?  I froze my kids toys. Yep. I had them help me collect small toys then I put them in ice trays with water and froze them. Sounds pretty evil when I say it out loud, but they absolutely loved it. Here is how it worked....
 The first thing I did was have the kids go on a "treasure hunt" to find me tiny toys from their playroom. Little mini cars, action figures, and legos worked best. I put them all into an ice tray, filled it with water, and put it all in the freezer for a few hours.
 A few hours later, I told the kids to grab some tools and meet me on the driveway. There, I made up a quick story about how Queen Elsa had frozen their toys and they were on a mission from Buzz & Woody to unfreeze them.  They bought right into it and went to work! 

  This activity kept them busy for quite a while. And my favorite part was all the amazing language opportunities it created. Using descriptive words like "cold," "hard" and "slippery." Requesting new tools. Problem solving. Realizing how body heat and the sun helped melt the ice faster than a hammer! Also, learning the value of teamwork! Mom win!!

A friend of mine saw my Instagram story about this and decided to freeze her son's toys too. But she put all the toys in a large ziplock bag and froze them. So her kids had to unfreeze a huge block of ice instead of small cubes. I may try her idea next time!
I'd love to hear your summer activities. Please share them in the comments :)

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