Art and science: Ice block painting

Friday 20th April 2018

We had so much fun exploring ice as we decided to do a little outdoor painting project.  The children thought that ice painting was so much fun and watching the colours pool as the ice melted was beautiful.

To start we poured water into an ice cube tray with added food dye and allowed it to freeze overnight. (One for each child, or for the amount of children who can fit at your space at one time.) Right before starting this activity, we let the ice settle a little so it was easy to remove out of the tray. 

The set up was simple. We used a recycled flat cardboard piece with sheets of paper and confetti stuck onto the board to create interest and inspiration. We also added rice and other open ended pieces to the mix for the children to engage with their senses with various textures. We wanted to encourage the children to use their words to describe what they were sensing and viewing. We found that simple invitations to create are the best. We simply allowed the children to experiment with the elements and use these in their own way. 

Maia created dot colours with her ice cubes. Teddy was fascinated by how the melted and the mixing of primary colours "It's now water", Said Teddy. Olivia enjoyed running her hands through the coloured ice and identifying all the colours. Lola was interested in smearing the coloured cubes onto the paper to see the effects and then using other colour cubes to blend each colour together on paper. Sophie had a similar interest and the girls were demonstrating sound sharing skills in swapping each others ice cubes as they painted. Sophie noticed a change with her work. "Honey." She said as we saw that the wet cardboard started to look like a yellow honey comb. Gus was testing the cubes through smell, taste and rubbing the cubes onto his hands. He really enjoyed being a part of our group experience. 

The children were really excited to see that when the ice cubes melted, it took the colour with it. The children liked watching the cubes pool and run off the ice as it melted as they were presented with a blank canvas again. The children had a continuously fresh canvas to paint on. 

We might repeat this activity using other props with actual water colours and brushes for a change to see how the play evolves and to create greater effect on paper. We may also try using this experience in the dark, with a glowing ice painting.