Ice play with a special message

The children were enjoying finding and playing with ice, outside in our garden, on our allotment onion beds and on the pond. Huge chunks were held, looked through, broken up and discussed as every piece was different and then started to melt.I set up a small world tray with different size ice cubes and ice containers, along with polar bears and seals. We first talked about how polar animals live, what they eat. As the ice began to melt, the children started asking questions-what melts the ice melt, where did all the water come from? Some of our older children could answer these-it's because the sun is hot, and the sea is warm. We added warm water to a piece of ice, observing how quickly it melted. One of the children asked where would the animals live if all the ice they lived on melted?This was a great catapult for understanding all about saving energy and the bigger picture. We have some fabulous books to support this. We discussed how turning off the lights and turning of the heating helps keep the sea cold. One of the children said it would be cold if we had no heating, another child answered you can turn it down and out on a dressing gown!!

The children went onto write about their findings, paint pictures and set up more small world play outside. More closer to home, with have been ensuring the birds are fed daily, we have made hedgehog houses and our bug hotel is warm and cosy!