Frozen Penguin Pals

Freezing animal figures in ice is always a huge hit for both my kids and our nature play classes, no matter the season. Winter, however, offers up an extra layer of magic to the play!

In our class this week we played like penguins and worked hard to free our frozen penguin pals from ice. We used our muscles and tools, such as mallets and rocks, to break up the ice and free our winter friends. Watching the children’s determined focus and sounds of “tap, tap, tap,” followed by squeals of triumph as the ice shattered to reveal their penguin was so fun to witness. Such a simple, yet satisfying sensory activity.

Typically when I freeze plastic toy figures in ice, I freeze them in cup cake tins. These penguin figures however, were too tall, so I used deeper paper cups. To release the ice, I simply tore away the paper cup. I also added blue food coloring to create a festive pop of color. I also froze additional colorful ice pucks in cupcake tins to extend the ice hammering play.

Unfortunately there was no snow, so I laid down a white sheet to better set the scene. After freeing all the penguins we played with the ice shards to create an antarctic landscape scene.