Salt Painting Ice Sculptures
We were inspired by the Artful Parent to try out this fun science experiment: watching how salt melts ice. Not only is this a great learning project, but it's amazingly beautiful to watch!
What You'll Need
How We Did It
Fill an empty milk carton with water and then freeze the water.
Place the ice block on a baking pan.
Have the children sprinkle salt on top of the block. We did this activity twice...first, with table salt, and then again with kosher salt. (In the end, we decided that kosher salt worked the best).
On the right side of this block of ice, my daughter poured a cup full of table salt. It didn't really melt the ice as nice as the kosher salt.
The kids oohed and aahed as the the salt melted crevasses into the ice.
We live in a place where it doesn't snow. However if you do live where it snows, this is a great activity to teach the kids why salt is spread on snowy/icy roads. (Salt basically lowers the freezing/melting point of water.)
My daughter had fun touching the cold ice. She is really focused, but later she was laughing up a storm because I caught her sticking her fingers into her mouth so she could taste the salt!
Its the size of the salt crystal and other impurities that will determine how well it will preform for this experiment. try using a smaller amount of road/sidewalk salt (use petsafe if you expect some tasteing) that would look interesting too.
posted by: Amanda on 3.2.2013
-comment on thisI did this with my 4yo. Excellent project!
posted by: Gina on 2.26.2013
-comment on thisposted by: Jeferson E Andressa on 1.6.2013
-comment on thisposted by: Jeferson E Andressa on 1.6.2013
-comment on thisposted by: Johannah on 12.11.2012
-comment on thisI completed Ice Sculptures. Awesome project
posted by: Laura on 10.16.2012
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