Spring Ice Building

Snow in the middle of April was perfect for some spring ice building in Cohort A. We started off by designing what we would want to build with the ice bricks that were made by freezing water in loaf pans and milk cartons.
"I want to build a cabin! " said one child about their design.
"I want to do graffiti art! Does anyone want to help me?" Said another child to their friends. 

When we got outside, Cohort A immediately noticed of the colourful ice bricks and started making guesses on what they represented. "Blue is water!" said one child to another, who replied by saying "yeah, and red is fire!" they then both agreed that green was "Earth".

Some of the children started testing out different ways to stack the bricks on top of each other, while other children wanted to test out how much force it would take to smash the ice bricks. "Let's see how many bricks we can stack on top of each other" said one child to their friend who replied with "No thanks, I want to smash them instead" 

 Since the weather was a bit warmer in the afternoon, some of the children noticed that the ice was starting to melt making it really sticky. The bricks got stuck on their gloves and their shoes. "Quick! Take a picture!" said one child. holding up his hand to show that the circular ice brick was sticking to his glove. "It looks like a Captain America Shield!"  Then, they picked up a bigger ice brick to see if that would stick to his glove as well. "It is pulling my glove off!" he exclaimed.

Although the children were not able to build exactly what they wanted, they explored different ways to use the ice bricks by creating new designs and testing out the idea of force to smash ice.
Next time, we will make even more ice so that the children can build all of their big ideas they have planned!

​- Leah