A fascinating experiment as you observe the salt melting craters into the ice, that’s where the colouring seeps through and creates beautiful, coloured tunnels!
You will need:
- Blocks of ice
- Ice Cream tub
- Food Colouring
- Salt
- Paintbrush
- Bowls
Here is what we do next
Take an old ice cream tub to freeze a block of ice. Before the children touch the ice, always rinse the ice with warm water. This starts the melting method and will stop your child’s fingers from sticking to the ice.
This is a messy activity so you will need a tray and it’s a good idea to place a towel under the ice as this will help stop it sliding about.
To start the activity you can look explore the texture of the ice and talk about how it feels. Next, you can paint the ice with the food colouring covering it all over, then pour the salt on top of the food colouring.
Get ready as next, you will hear the sound of the ice cracking as the salt begins to create tiny craters.
You can then take your paintbrush and begin to paint the salt, you will see that the colour sits on the salt brightly before soaking down and through the craters in the ice.