ARTZILLA

This Nature-Inspired Activity is Easy and Fun and I Guarantee Your Kids Will Love It!

To Get Started Gather A Few Materials

You’ll need to go for a nature walk to gather the materials to place inside of your ice sculptures. I like to encourage kids to gather materials from the ground rather than pick things from the trees. There are plenty of beautiful specimens covering the ground. Once these sculptures melt the items you use in your sculptures will be returned to the forest. Choose some colourful pieces.

Here’s what you’ll need:

• Fallen materials from the forest floor to go inside of your ice sculptures/sun catchers
• Moulds for your Ice sculptures/sun catchers, this can be pot, pans, pie dishes, Tupperware, yogurt containers, etc.
• String for hanging, try to choose something natural that will break down if you aren’t returning to remove it once it melts.

Making Your Sun Catchers

Once you’ve gathered all of your materials it’s time to get started! This project is easy and suitable for kids of any age, younger kids will need assistance from an older kid or adult but will thoroughly enjoy it!

• Place your gathered materials into the bottom of your mould however you’d like them to appear once they’ve frozen into place
• Fill the mould with water to the top and make sure that the forest materials are submerged into the water
• Cut a piece of string and tie it into a loop and submerge it into the water as well, this will be used to hand your sun catcher once it’s frozen. If you are making an ice sculpture or block, this step isn’t necessary.
• Place your moulds outdoors if the temperature is below zero or into your freezer
• Once they have frozen solid, remove them from the moulds by running a bit of warm water over the moulds
• We made a few, so we placed ours in a cooler and went for a walk in the forest and hung them in the trees along the path

Some Ways to Turn this into a Learning Experience

• Bring your nature journals and revisit your sun catchers or ice sculptures daily, observe changes in them. What can you attribute these changes to? What is the weather like?
• Bring a thermometer or record the weather and then record any changes in your sculptures
• How did the weather affect your sculptures? Why? Keep a record of the weather patterns and the changes in your sculptures
• Did you notice any other changes in your sculptures that may not have been affected to by the weather? What could it have been? Animals? Humans? Something else? Do you see any clues?
• Does the placement of your sculptures have any affect on how quickly or how slowly they stay intact? How come?
• Can you identify the materials you used in your sculptures?

Thank your for checking out my blog. I truly hope that you enjoy this activity. I’d love to see pictures of your sun catchers and hear how this went for you!

Keep checking back, there will be a lot more fun activities coming up. And check out my shop, there are some useful materials for your little ones there too.

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