Easy Snow Melting Activity for Kids
This is a simple snow melting and ice melting science activity for preschool or kindergarten children. This melting activity teaches preschool children or kindergarten kids to observe and report their observations based on different conditions and different substances being used to cause a reaction.
It’s a simple, yet effective and interesting science activity to use with your children. You can also use this science experiment to create a winter lesson plan or winter theme. This experiment would work well alongside winter songs for preschoolers, some winter art activities, winter themed books or coloring pages, games and other winter related activities to create your own lesson plan.
Science Activity for Preschoolers Requires:
- 2 large bowls or bins
- 2 large chunks of ice or snow
- Coarse Salt or industrial salt for melting outdoor ice
- Chart Paper
- Marker
What to do for this Science Activity:
- Fill the two bins with the snow or ice.
- Ask the pre k or kindergarten children who thinks the ice alone will melt more quickly, and how many children think the ice with the salt will melt more quickly.
- Document their answers on chart paper.
- Dump a handful or two of salt onto the ice in one of the sensory bins and wait to see what happens.
- Document the end result and compare it with the children’s answers.
How does salt make ice melt more quickly?
Answer: When the ice starts to dissolve it changes the temperature in the ice slightly, causing it to start melting faster than ice just sitting on its own.
(Same answer if using snow instead of ice).
Melting Snow/Ice – Science Experiment for Kids:
In the winter time you can get a small snowball from outside.
Place the snowball in a plastic or metal bowl out in the science area for all the children to observe it.
Document the time that you placed it in the container. Leave it out and time how long it takes to melt. You can document this.
*You could do this with 3 different sizes of snowballs and document which ones melt the fastest.
You could even place one near a sunlit window where it is warmer. Place another in the middle of the classroom and keep one outside. (They will obviously melt at different speeds)
You can discuss with the preschool children the changes that you see happening:
- Why are the changes happening?
- Which snowball is melting fastest?