It's been a fitting year for a movie entitled Frozen to be hit the big screen. "Do you want to build a snowman? It doesn't have to be a snowman."
Near zero temperatures and a toddler who wouldn't admit that he was bored out of his mind, lead for desperate measures--an activity that would entertain for more than five minutes. On this particular day, I wasn't sure that it was even possible. So I asked Ethan if he wanted to do an experiment and journal about it. His ears perked up.
My husband boiled the water and put it in a coffee travel mug. To really make it a good learning experience, we also took out a travel mug of cold water. We threw the cold water in the air first. Of course, it spilled out like normal. Then we threw the hot water and watched it turn to a cloud of super fine snow.
Remember BE CAREFUL. We were wearing heavy winter clothing, including gloves, and we were very cautious of the direction of the wind, etc. Our mugs had handles and were not breakable. You can read an explanation of the science here...as well as read a cautionary "do not try this at home" tale. (Don't want to tell you "I told you so.")
So then we came inside and drew what we had seen. At first Ethan just drew crazy all over the page, but after watching me draw mine, he quickly flipped his paper over and started drawing "cups and water." It was a good way to be entertained, as well as a great chance to talk about what we had seen. He was especially excited that we were drawing in our journals about science experiments like Sid the Science Kid.
Going to have to be on the lookout for some more experiments. The journal was a real hit!
Here's our video too..just in case you wanna check it out :)
Enjoy! Be careful, and stay warm out there!