Ice Fun with a little bit of Learning

Want the kids to spend over an hour outside with some creative and intriguing play? 

1.  Freeze blocks of ice in a variety of containers.

2.  Place ice blocks in pans with sides.

3.  Fill empty egg carton with water and food coloring (you may have to refill as the hour goes on).

4.  Let kids pour salt all over ice (or mix salt into food coloring).

5.  Give them eye droppers and let them play around with the salt, ice and colors.

Casually bring up that salt lowers the melting point of water.The salt creates groves or tunnels in the ice as it melts, which the colors help you see.   Show them that red and blue make purple....that the ice in the metal pan mets quicker than the one in the glass pan....that the one drop of blue can contaminte the entire thing of yellow....that you better ask before putting colors on your sister's sculpture.  You get the idea.  Expand it, use it to teach.  Science right before your eyes!

What other ideas for learning fun do you have?

City Museum in St. Louis

Thanks to a very helpful server at Joe Buck's in St. Louis, MO, we found the hands-down best museum for kids I have ever been to.  It's called City Museum and it was awesome!

I have to start out saying that the pictures do not do it justice.  The museum is housed in an old warehouse and they have embellished every inch in some creative way.   Do you see the bus hanging off the roof?  You can go in it and look at a great panoramic view of the city.  The outside park was closed the day we went but there are tons of crawlspaces, ball pits, airplanes (!) to climb around.

 Beware: this place is FULL of places that people with a fear of heights do not want to venture.

After climbing up 12 flights of stairs (there was a line for the elevator) we found ourselves on the rooftop park.  The first thing the girls head to is this REALLY steep slide.  When Little Bit made it half way up the rope it was too steep for her to climb any higher.  I had to maneuver my way around all the kids on the rope behind her, thinking I would carry her to the top.  WAY TOO STEEP and way too slippery.  I put her on my lap where we were and slid down the best we could.  That was enough for me but not enough for her.  Luckily there were also steps to the top.  She could have done this all day long.  Just looking down the slide from the top made me a little queasy. 

 

There was a Farris wheel on the roof as well.  I can imagine the view was fantastic.  We'll just have to keep  imagining.

This white thing is a long slide....with a giant preying mantis on the top.  Cool!

Throughout the entire museum were these crawling tubes.  Some you could tell where they went (over top of the giant stairwell, meaning there is nothing but space underneath you) or into the unknown.  Call me a little free-range parenty, but it was kinda cool that you had no idea where you would come down once you went up.  This place is not for the helicopter parent who cannot keep close tabs on your kids.  You just gotta have faith that once they go up they will come down (most likely in a completely different place).  

There was a train ride and miniature train village, toddler area, hands on arts and crafts, boardless skate park, the largest pencil in the world, circus school, huge walk-in vault, hall of mirrors that looked like a kaleidoscope, caves, ponds, and SO MANY other things that I cannot remember.  Such an eclectic mix of exhibits.  The people that made this happen are some amazing folks.

A giant hamster wheel.  What's not fun about that?

Because the pictures just cannot show you all the creativity and fun involved, you will just have to make the trip for yourself.  I promise, this is well worth it!