Octo Ice

There is no way in which this is an original idea, but it was just so crazy and fun, that I just had to share!  You can see the idea and directions over at Growing a Jeweled Rose.

I actually found some cheap noodles that were only about a third of the price of spaghetti here, so I used those, but I'm wondering if the texture might have been better (and held up a bit better with the freezing) if I had gone ahead and just used spaghetti.

Zeke seemed a little unsure of what exactly this thing was and what we were going to do with it!

 After they had been playing awhile, I remembered we had a plate of salt sitting nearby because we had just been doing writing in salt before we did this.  I asked Isaiah if he knew what salt would do to ice, and he said no and asked if we could find out.  At first I sprinkled a bit on, but Isaiah wanted to dump the entire plate of it on our ice octopus!  He was really interested in how the ice got rough and melted from the salt.

 It didn't take long before the heat and the mess led to shirtless boys!

Isaiah actually wanted to take the Octo ice and scoot it around on the sidewalk and, in typical boy fashion, start smashing it into pieces on the ground.  

Zeke kept right on playing with the melted mess and noodles, and as you can see, had to head straight for the bath when we finished.  I am often quite convinced that our neighbors are watching and wondering what on earth the crazy foreigners are doing this time!  Play and exploration aren't exactly culturally normal parts of learning here.

 Pretty proud of his messy ice chunks!