We recently spent a day doing science experiments about melting. It fit well with our 
snowmen activities we did earlier. We did activities melting ice, candles, chocolate chips, and crayon bits. This day was inspired by activities in Science is Simple by Peggy Ashbrook and The Complete Daily Curriculum by Pam Schiller and Pat Phipps.
Of course to kick off our look at melting, we started by lighting small candles planted in bowls of sand to catch the wax.
Colored Blocks of Ice
The girls loved this and it looked really cool!
Supplies: 1/2 gallon cardboard containers, water, coarse salt, pipettes, liquid watercolor,
- First freeze blocks of ice. I used old 1/2 gallon cardboard drink packages such as an orange juice container. After they were frozen, when it was time, tear off the cardboard sides.
- Put coarse salt, such as Kosher salt, onto the block of ice. We just sprinkled it over the top before lunch time and then came back to our blocks of ice after lunch. This gave the salt time to melt little tunnels into the ice.
- Drop colored water onto the block of ice. We used plastic pipettes (an eye dropper would work great too) and liquid watercolor paint. The color drizzled through the tunnels made by the salt creating really cool designs and showing how the salt had melted down the ice.
Chocolate Chips–Another solid to melt
Showing off their chocolate chips
Rainbow Crayons
Finally, we made our own new rainbow crayons to look at one more example of how things melt into a liquid and then harden into a solid.
Supplies: broken crayon bits, muffin tin, cooking spray, oven
- Gather up your broken crayon bits and take the wrappers off.
- Mix up the pieces and put them in a heavily greased muffin tin.
- Bake at 250 degrees for about 10-12 minutes.
- Take out and let cool. Then enjoy coloring!
