amo...amas...amat

I tried to say I love summer, but I don’t. I flat out hate it. This summer of record heat has brought short tempers with the longer days - not a good combo. Cool activities are needed, but there’s only so much inside time one can handle in a day.

Cue the ice brick. I’m sure I saw this on pinterest or some blog I frequented pre-pinterest, but it’s been in the back of my mind for so long I don’t know its source. Which is too bad, because if I knew the source I might buy her a cupcake for giving me 45 minutes of happy time at the end of the day when it was still well over 100º in the evening time. 

The idea is simple. Freeze toys in a block of ice; let kids excavate. I had found a tub of polar animals at Tuesday Morning. The container they came in was like a plastic ice cream tub - the perfect size for our freezer. I filled the container about a third of the way and put some of the animals in. I let it freeze a bit before adding more water and animals so that they were spaced fairly evenly throughout. 

I handed the girls some salt and some water and told them to figure out how to get the animals out. Daisy loved the opportunity to be a scientist and started trying to figure out if it worked better with just salt, just water, or a salt and water combined. Clementine just liked the water. 

Clementine just liked the water, that is, until she realized that she could smash. A meat tenderizer acted as a hammer. Ice chips flew everywhere to the delight of both girls. 

Killer whale = fascinating scientific discovery.

A good scientist always cleans up her workspace.