Salt and Ice Experiment : Melting Hearts Art
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Science should be fun and enticing, correct? Yes, fewer kids would have trouble enjoying science at college.. This melting hearts art is a colorful, vibrant, art activity and a fine motor activity rolled into one is actually one of the most popular science experiments for kids. With a few simple materials you can set up this gorgeous artsy science activity.
Materials
- Heart shaped ice blocks
- Salt
- Liquid Watercolors
- Watercolor Paper
- Pipettes/ medicine droppers
For this science experiment, I froze water in one of my heart cups, you can use heart shaped cookie pans or any heart shaped container you have on hand.
We placed the ice hearts on heavy water color paper and I let the kids loose with a bowl full of salt. Any coarse salt or even Epsom salt should be great but we just used table alt this time. The results were just as fabulous.
Once the salt starts melting the ice, you can see the ice tunnels and cracks forming. Make those tunnels more beautiful by adding our favorite liquid watercolors. Using pipettes the children dropped ( sometimes squirted) water color on the ice and they were excited to see the color travel through the cracks in the ice.
We even made a little mound ice with a tiny snack cup. Turn it upside down you got yourself a pretend “volcano” in this case. I just love it when the children engage in imaginative play.
The little hearts were made from the same baking pan we used for our “Fake chocolate sensory play”
The hearts start to melt on the paper creating a colorful stream. It is possible that this science experiment will turn into sensory play since the ice hearts became so squishy and it was plain fun to handle them.
This is supposed to be a “moss covered” ice.
The ice hearts soon start to look like a tiny crystal garden.
Since we are color junkies, we kept moving the hearts all around the paper so that the paper can soak up all the color.
Can you see those spikes on the hearts? They are so gorgeous. For grade schoolers, this activity can be a true science experiment where th children observe and identify changes while hypothesizing about what’s really going on.
This was a chance happening. The center of the heart melted away faster than the edges leaving a beautiful “heart jewel”
This is our reality shot – our art table.
Notes:
It is best to do this science experiment on the floor covered with a vinyl cloth or a cheap table cover. If you want to do this on a table, cover your floor or else you will have small colored water puddle dripping from the watercolor paper.
So do you want to see the watercolor paper which soaked up all the color?
More science experiments on our category page
Our Pinterest board also has science experiments for kids ideas
Thanks for reading!
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