Giant Ice Cube Archeology Fun | Welcome To Nana's

Boy was this giant ice cube archeology activity a hot summer’s day hit!!

Surprise!

I baited the grands, telling them there would be a surprise activity later in the day. I covered my tracks by saying it was not a big surprise but it would be a fun one on a hot afternoon. “What’s your surprise, Nana?” “The surprise will be coming soon!”

Gotta' Plan Ahead

Doing giant ice cube archeology takes some preplanning, but it was worth it when the grands came to stay for a few days.

We discovered some things that worked well and some that didn’t work well at all so perhaps we can save you the pain of experimenting!

Giant Ice Cubes

Ice cream buckets were what I used as forms to make the giant ice cubes. I’m embarrassed to say that there were plenty of ice cream tubs in our garage to make one for each of the three grands that were visiting.

Treats to Freeze Inside

Gather together several small items that you can freeze into the ice. Small toys work great. Things like small cars, tiny fairy dolls, jacks, etc. Small candy, notes and money could work too. I put some of the items into small snack sized sealable bags to keep them from getting wet.

Freezing Process

Now comes the part that takes a bit of planning…doing the freezing. It doesn’t work to throw all the items into the bucket and fill it with water to freeze. Then almost all of the items would sink and freeze in one small bunch in the bottom! That won’t do!

So here’s the scoop on giant ice cube archeology success!

Using chilled water, pour a layer in the bottom of the bucket and place it in the freezer.

The ice cream buckets need to sit pretty flat in the freezer. Having a deep freeze is helpful if you have several you are making at one time.

Freeze a Layer at a Time

When the bottom layer is frozen, add one or two items on top and pour in more chilled water. Let freeze.

Continue doing this, layer by layer, until all items are frozen into the block of ice.

Pour the last layer of chilled water on top to finish it off. Allow the ice block to freeze solid.

Obviously this takes some time.

Tip: Use very chilled, almost freezing cold water so the lower layer of frozen ice doesn’t thaw when adding water to freeze the next layer.

A Fun Surprise Revealed!

When it was time for the surprise, I handed each child a small hammer and a screwdriver or chisel. They were very curious to say the least. They sat down in the grass and waited for what was coming. Out came the frozen ice in the buckets.

Giant Ice Cube Archeology!

The buckets of ice sat on the grass a few seconds before the kids figured out what the activity would be. In a couple more minutes, the ice came loose and the kids dumped it out on the grass. Then the grands were really excited! The ice blocks with the items inside were really quite pretty.

Chip Away!

The guidelines were that they had to chip away at the ice carefully to get the items free, they couldn’t just start pounding it with their hammers!

What Did You Find?

It took a while to chip everything out of the ice. A couple of the items I chose didn’t work real well (I tell about that in the tip below.) But the kids had so much fun freeing the other little toys and candy from the ice that they didn't mind. One treat was a small pool toy and we took that with us to go swimming later on in the day.,

The chipped ice itself even became a toy as the kids played with it for a while outside in the heat.

Tip: Be careful to pick everything up from the grass so there are no tools left to get hit by your mower!

Tip: The Mardi Gras type of necklace I froze broke with the shifting of the freezing process. I also tried writing notes on some craft foam, but it split in half as the ice was chipped away. I love the idea of including notes or coupons to redeem (like for an ice cream cone or popcorn and a movie before bedtime). If you think of a material (would fabric work best?) to make these notes out of that can withstand the freezing process let me know!!