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You are here: Home / Science / Frozen Sensory Bin Activity for Toddlers and Preschoolers

Frozen Sensory Bin Activity for Toddlers and Preschoolers

January 5, 2011 by Sheryl Cooper

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This post might contain affiliate links. CLICK HERE for more information. Thanks for visiting!

Putting together a frozen sensory bin activity for toddlers and preschoolers is easy and fun! There’s also some science mixed in as the children learn what happens to water when it is placed in below freezing weather and then brought back into a warm room.

For this activity, I filled the sensory table with water and placed it outside. We don’t get snow often here in the Pacific Northwest, but it can get cold enough to freeze water. This was one of those weeks. Because we do many different winter activities, I want them to be as meaningful as possible. We can talk about cold, but do we understand cold? The feeling of cold? We can talk about ice and how it melts, but have we actually experienced it? Explored it? Worked with it? So, it’s important to provide real-life experiences to accompany your ideas, to make it more meaningful for the children.

Frozen Sensory Bin for Toddlers and Preschoolers

 Frozen Sensory Bin Activity for Toddlers and Preschoolers

 

 What you will need for this preschool winter idea:

  • A sensory table or some sort of plastic bin
  • Water
  • We added arctic animals.


winter sensory table

Setting it up:

Fill container with water and place outdoors when it’s below freezing. Once it’s frozen, bring it indoors. Place some sort of mat underneath to catch the water if it drips out of the table. Place the animals on top of the ice, if desired.

 

winter sensory table
 
 
winter sensory table
As the children arrived, they were fascinated that the water was solid. They touched it with their fingers. Moved the animals around.
winter sensory table
As the water started to melt, I gave them tubes and basters to suck and move the water into buckets. This was the best part!
 
 
 
winter sensory table
After awhile, we ventured outdoors where we found more ice.
winter sensory table
 
 I gave the children plastic hammers so they could try to break the ice. (I borrowed hammers from our hammering kit.)
 
winter sensory table
 We also moved our indoor (now melting) water table back outside, so it could refreeze. The children wanted to see what would happen if the animals were left outside. When we returned the next school day, everything they had left on the water table had frozen onto or into it. We had another day of trying to remove the pieces from the ice. A fun winter activity for sure!
winter sensory table
 

 

Check out our science pin board for more fun!

 

Frozen Sensory Bin for Toddlers and Preschoolers

 

 

 

More activities:

Super Simple Ocean Sensory Bin

Construction Sensory Bin with Kinetic Sand

Flower Sensory Bin for Literacy Skills

 

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Filed Under: preschool, Preschool Science, Science, Sensory Bins, Toddler Science, Toddlers, Winter Activities Tagged With: preschoolers, science, sensory, toddlers, winter

About Sheryl Cooper

Sheryl Cooper is the founder of Teaching 2 and 3 Year Olds, a website full of activities for toddlers and preschoolers. She has been teaching this age group for over 20 years and loves to share her passion with teachers, parents, grandparents, and anyone with young children in their lives.

Previous Post: « Thanksgiving Corn Craft for Preschoolers
Next Post: Learn the Alphabet With Our ABC Box »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Deborah

    January 5, 2011 at 3:11 am

    This is so cute – I love the ice skating!

  2. Katherine

    January 5, 2011 at 3:36 am

    I love this! I am finally bringing a sensory table into my classroom next week and I think I am going to start with this idea! I have been going back and forth between the million great ones on the internet, but I think the kids will really get a kick out of this and make some great discoveries 🙂

  3. Pam

    January 5, 2011 at 4:25 am

    wow- what a great idea!

  4. Ms Debbie

    January 5, 2011 at 2:59 pm

    I love it too !! thanks for sharing !

  5. Scott

    January 5, 2011 at 8:11 pm

    I love it when learning opportunities are given to you. You certainly took advantage of a fun learning opportunity with the frozen table. What fun! (and what great learning)

  6. TwosTimesTwelve

    January 7, 2011 at 3:40 am

    What could be better than such a great idea like this being handed to you, thank you for passing it on to the rest of us 🙂 we have been getting a lot of use from our sensory table lately and I am always looking for new ideas.

  7. Mommy

    January 8, 2011 at 3:34 am

    Hi I’m your newest follower I love your blog & can’t wait to try out some of your ideas with my daughter! I’d love a follow back @ http://myadventures-in-mommyland.blogspot.com

  8. [email protected]{share and remember}

    January 8, 2011 at 1:36 pm

    I love the tubes & turkey baster idea! I will have to freeze my water table for Monday! Great idea.

  9. Christie - Childhood 101

    January 23, 2011 at 5:18 am

    What a fantastic learning opportunity. Can I suggest, if the cold weather continue that you set up an experiment with different liquids to see which freeze and which don’t 🙂

  10. http://livingatthewhiteheadszoo.blogspot.com/

    April 8, 2011 at 8:17 pm

    This is such a neat idea! We’re in Florida so not often cold enough but I love it!!

  11. sami

    June 8, 2011 at 8:22 pm

    It never gets that cold here on the California Northern coast but I think I will try a few blocks frozen with items and put them into the tabel and see what the kids do with that. Thanks!! Just started using my tabel inside my house as we are often stuck inside with the rain outside, even in the summer!

  12. The Mommies Made Me Do It

    December 29, 2011 at 9:15 pm

    OMG, we HAVE To do this!

  13. Paula

    January 21, 2012 at 4:36 pm

    I am loving this idea! Wishing we had a water table in my pre-k classroom! I have featured your blog and this activity on my blog’s weekly Teacher Spotlight blog post. Please check it out and grab our “Featured On..” button for your blog! You can find my post on http:paulasreadingchair.blogspot.com!

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Welcome! I'm Sheryl Cooper, teacher of 2 and 3 year olds for over 19 years. Read more about me here!

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