Frugal Fun with lots of science and imagination!!

My kids love sledding! I had to include these pictures!

A couple of weeks ago, we had so much snow and freezing temps that school was cancelled three times in just 10 days or so.  That makes my job kind of stressful: not only do I have "extra" kiddos (two school agers) but all the kids are HYPER and excited about the snow, and it's too frigid to go play outside!

Thanks for letting me share these pix, even tho they're not related to the childcare business aspect! :)

So, I brought the outside IN!  We played in some buckets of snow. Unfortunately, those pictures are on a different camera and I can't upload them right now.  But, we had large shallow buckets that I took outside to fill with snow. I brought them inside and the kiddos played with it with mittens and gloves on.  When they grew tired of that, I brought in the toys from the sandbox. This was fun!  Raking, shovelling, filling buckets, dumping buckets.. making igloos instead of sand castles...   endless possibilities!  When they grew tired of that (as in, the next day), I filled a $1 spray bottle with a tiny bit of powder paint and lots of water, then I sprayed the snow!  They watched our snow turn from bright clean white to pretty purple, then pink, then blue..     Then, we sprayed the blue part with the yellow mix and watched it turn green.  Again, endless possibilities!  So sad that I didn't take enough pictures with the good camera!

Well, when the kids are tired of all that, I needed a place to pitch the snow in a hurry so we could put our supplies away and move on to the next thing, so I just put the filled containers outside.  To be honest, I kind of forgot about them until today. ...which is cool.

We discovered that the snow must have melted some (or maybe it froze?) to make a nice, clear sheet of ice!  Now we had a nice big, shallow container filled with a layer of pretty ice  (only the light purple - all the other colored buckets were dumped).  The kids spent a few minutes driving the small cars and trucks on the ice and exploring it with their bare hands.

When they tired of that, I allowed them to break it and "squish it" and make a mess of it.   Then, I had a brilliant (to me) idea!

We used the floor for this, because other kiddos were busy at the table and I don't have the patience to wait on a good idea.  Plus, my floor is very easy to wipe up with a paper towel.
I gave the artist a piece of construction paper with his/her name on it.
Then, I sprinkled powder paint on the paper and them go to town with a big chunk of ice on the powder. They loved seeing the colors transform!  The powder looks so much different dry than when it's wet.
Each child finished quickly - but they're still talking about the project, hours later.  Fun!!