Home School Ice Unit

It’s winter. We’re still homeschooling, and I needed to do something with ice, since it doesn’t seem like we were bound to get any in Chicago that stayed for a normal amount of time. Lots of people are okay with that, including me, but because I am who I am, I wanted my work level for this unit to be not as much as it was. Sue me. I think that’s one of the reasons that I love my Kiwi Crate Monthly Subscription. 

For this unit I turned to my Kiwi Crate subscription that I get once per month, but usually put away as soon as they get here until I can find a way to incorporate it into a lesson. Chicago has been fickle, so I just decided to go for it. We took all of our supplies out, and flipped through the experiment book and decided to do some right off the bat. We have about seven more experiments left to do, and we’ll have worked our way through the entire booklet of experiments. While the houseful of littles were excited about playing with ice, and salt for the most part, it was the painting of snowflakes that really captured their attention. SNOWFLAKES! 

 

With this particular experiment we talked about salt dissolving and then crystals being formed after the water evaporated. It was endearing to see the kids continuing to walk back into the kitchen to check on their snowflakes after they were “painted” to see if the water had completely dried up yet. Of course afterwards, we were left with color and crystals, and no wet papers. 

The last experiment that we did dealt with density. While I think that the science specific definition was too heavy to share with the littles, they did finally talk their way around why the food coloring was sinking faster in one cup of water than the other. Can you guess why? Of course salt has to do with one of those. 

We’re still learning our way through this homeschooling journey, and I suspect we’ll learn right up until the time I release them to their respective colleges or universities. 

If you’re interested in having fun kits sent to your doorstep every month, you can do just like we do and subsribe to the Kiwi Crate boxes. If this particular crate is too young or too old for your kiddies, there are several age groups that you can choose from until you find something just right. We highly recommend them!