Preschool Science Fun with Ice Castles

Try out this preschool science fun with ice castles! It’s the perfect addition to your list of engineering activities for kids.

Most of my students adore the movie “Frozen”!  In fact, I’ve had “Let It Go” stuck in my head for more than 3 weeks because they love to sing it.  So when we had a fairy tale theme last month, I just knew I wanted to create ice castles for the kiddos.  It was an incredibly simple preschool science activity, but the children really seemed to enjoy it.

ice castles make preschool science FUN

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Materials
Clear plastic containers
Ice cube trays
Eye droppers
Glass gems
Sequins
Fairy TOOB
Purple Glitter

Set Up
I put water into the clear containers and ice cube trays, then added a smattering of fairy “bling”.  To do this, I just added a variety of items we’d used during our sparkling princess slime and fairy tale name  activities. Some of our toy fairies were tossed in there, too to encourage the children to “rescue” them.  Before placing everything in the freezer, I added a smattering of “fairy dust” (aka glitter).

The next morning, I took all of the ice out of the freezer, placing them into my sensory table bins.  I added a touch of water to the bottom of each ice cube to stick the ice together.  Thus, the ice castles were born!

How the Children Played
Oh, the kids were so excited when I brought the ice creations into the classroom!  I had originally planned to leave the bins in their stands. However, this preschool science experiment was too popular!  So I placed a large blue tarp on the floor and placed the bins, droppers, and cups of water on top.  This way, there was more room for the students.

The children immediately set to work!  They poured water on the ice, hit it with spoons, and dripped water over the top.

Related: Frozen Activities Kids Will Love

A pocket of water was discovered inside one of the castles, much to the students’ delight.  They broke it open and began adding ice cubes to it, just to see what would happen.

The fairy queen seemed to be the main focus for many of the kids.  Apparently, they were on a time frame to get her out of the ice.  It was rather entertaining to listen as they negotiated the best ways to break her out of the ice castle.  Such excitement for all of them — rescuing the queen and grabbing some “royal treasure” that was frozen in ice.

Ideas for Next Time
This preschool science exploration was successful, based on the children’s reactions!  Next time, I think I’d like to take it to the next level.  We could create a plan to melt the ice prior to the activity starting.  I’d also like to have the children compare the different ways they could melt ice (salt, different water temperatures, etc.).

Are your children interested in fairy tales or the movie “Frozen”?   Have you ever tried building (and melting) ice castles?

For more fairy tale activities, pop on over to my Fairy Tale Pinterest board.

Follow Mary Catherine @ Fun-A-Day!’s board {Theme} Fairy Tales on Pinterest.

For more preschool science activities, check out my Science & Sensory Pinterest board.

Follow Mary Catherine @ Fun-A-Day!’s board * Sensory/Science Activities for Young Children on Pinterest.

If you’d like to watch my favorite version of “Let It Go”, check out Alex Boye’s version (links to video on You Tube).  My students also really enjoyed this version.  🙂

Done-for-You Preschool Resources

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Preschool Teacher 101 is excited to share with you some amazing lesson plans, activity packs, and other resources made specifically for preschool. We offer a wide variety of themes that are frequently used in preschool classrooms as well as some less common (but super interesting) themes. Click on the image below to learn more about our fairy tale lesson plans!

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