Kids will love this quick and easy ice art activity! In addition to creating beautiful process art, kids will learn about the interaction between ice and salt as they do this simple kitchen science experiment.
The moment I saw these beautiful ice art creations from The Artful Parent and Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas I knew we were going to have to try this hands-on science activity out for ourselves.
This experiment is quick, easy to clean up, and completely dazzling!
Creating Ice Art
*This post contains affiliate links. Please see our disclosure policy.
To create our gorgeous ice art creations we gathered a few simple craft and kitchen supplies:
- Ice cubes
- Table salt
- Liquid Watercolors
- Paintbrushes
- My kids also used glitter glue and glitter, which added a very festive flare, but it is certainly not required!
Make Ice Art
Once we had our supplies ready we placed the ice cubes in a single layer in a casserole dish. The kids sprinkled some salt over the ice and watched how the individual grains of salt melted tunnels into the center of the cubes. It was so cool!
We used liquid watercolors to paint the ice cubes. It was almost magical to watch the colors fall into the caves created by the salt. My daughter used some glitter and glitter glue to make the ice cubes shiny. The kids stayed busy for 30 minutes or so salting and painting and salting some more to create their beautiful ice art.
Once they were done painting I simply dumped the casserole dish into the sink and washed it out. Clean up was a cinch!
Want more ways to play and learn with ice? Check out these ten simple ice science activities, make ice cream or a fruity slushy drink, or do ice heart painting for Valentine’s Day!
Building Structures with Candy Hearts from Lemon Lime Adventures
Waves from Suzy Homeschooler
PVC Pipe Heart Engineering Project for Kids from Little Bins for Little Hands
This looks so interesting! We’ve never tried it, so we will try it over the holidays. Thanks for sharing on Toddler Fun Friday!
My kids would enjoy this! They have some ice from an ice storm we had a few days ago saved in the deep freezer. This would be a fun way to get rid of it. Thanks for sharing at #made4kids!