Experiments with snow and ice in kindergarten

What you need:

• black paper
• Possibly. Camera
• Ice cubes
• two drinks
• thermometer
• bottle of water
• Plastic bag
• shell
• some straw or hay
• freezer

Finally snow in the kindergarten

Take the opportunity (which is rare in some winters) to coax some peculiarities out of the snow with your kindergarten children with experiments:

• Snowflakes are made up of small crystals. This can be observed particularly nicely if you drop some of the flakes onto cold, black cardboard. The astronomer Kepler already dealt with crystals and even wrote a small treatise. Because: Every little crystal has its own history and therefore looks different. The longer the path through the air, the larger the flakes, because growth mainly takes place on the edges and corners. You may also capture some of the trapped flakes with a camera.
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• Make snowballs out of the freshly fallen snow. In doing so, you squeeze and tap a handful of snow into a ball that is as compact as possible. This works particularly well if the snow is not too cold, because parts of the snow slide over one another with easy friction; the surface melts a little and then freezes again. The ice binds the snow. However, if the snow is too cold (i.e. very powdery), the friction is not enough to melt it. Everyone knows the problem: Sometimes, with the best will in the world, you can't form a snowball.
• Snow is white. But why? One would actually expect snow to be transparent like ice or water. However, as the first experiment shows, snow consists of small crystals attached to one another. These direct the incident sunlight almost like small mirrors in all directions and the snow appears white. Sometimes a blanket of snow even glitters. For the same reason, snow crackles when you walk over it. Because the small crystals break and the trapped air bubbles are exposed to pressure.

Experiments with ice - also possible in summer

You can also carry out experiments with ice in summer. The only condition is that the kindergarten Has a freezer or freezer compartment. For some experiments, ice cubes can also be brought in an insulated container (thermos):

• Ice cubes are particularly effective in cooling drinks in summer. Most of them have this experience children certainly already done. But why is it like that? Start a cooling experiment in kindergarten with two equally warm drinks. Put an ice cube in the first drink, mix the second with the same amount of cold water (preferably around 0 ° C). Let the ice cube at least melt, stir and measure the temperature of both drinks. In fact, the ice drink is much cooler, because the small cube needs energy to melt (after all, the firm bonds have to be broken). And unfortunately this energy has to be donated by the drink, which becomes cold in the process.
• Ice is explosive. Anyone who has just quickly put a bottle of wine or sparkling wine in the freezer and forgot it there knows that. This experiment can also be carried out well in kindergarten. You fill a small bottle completely with water, close it tightly and put it (to be on the safe side) in a sturdy plastic bag. And then it goes in the freezer. The next day the ice burst the bottle. The reason is, by the way, that water expands when it freezes (in contrast to other liquids). The water particles simply need more space when the ice forms. A good idea in kindergarten is here: If all the children hold hands with outstretched arms, the group also needs more space. Incidentally, this increase in space during ice formation also leads to frost breakouts on the streets.
• Ice floats. This phenomenon, which you can demonstrate well with a few ice cubes, is also unusual. The reason for this is also to be found in the expansion during freezing. And such a small ice cube also shows something completely different: Most of the cube is under water - a danger with icebergs.
• This interesting experiment is hard to believe, because fire is made from ice here - an idea that goes back to Jules Verne's novel "The Ice Desert". All you need is a small bowl in which to freeze ice into a convex converging lens. Alternatively, as in the novel, you can knock such a lens out of a block of ice and polish it with a warm cloth. If you hold this ice lens against the light of the sun so that its rays are focused on some dry straw or hay, it will start to burn there within a short time. At least small clouds of smoke develop.