frozen hands

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Time: 1 Day

Skill level: easy, just takes to time for the water to freeze.

items:

• Disposable Plastic Gloves
• Twist Ties or Tape
• Small Halloween Theme Items (small enough to go into the gloves and then freeze)
• Water
• Food Coloring
• Table Salt

instructions:

1. To start, have your preschooler age grandchild fill the surgical glove with their favorite (small) Halloween-themed items! Have them drop the items into the gloves and work them down into the fingertips. Grandpa Tip: be careful not to puncher a hole in the glove!
2. Fill the gloves 3/4 of the way with water, and add a few drops of food coloring. Grandpa Tip: There can be a lesson in color mixing here! If you don’t have orange food coloring at home – add a few drops of yellow and red to one glove to make it!
3. Give each glove a twist and secure it tightly with a twist-tie or some house tape. Grandpa Tip: The water will not leak if you twist the top of the glove tight.
4. Give the hands a little shake to distribute the food color evenly throughout the glove (to be safe, you might want to do this over the sink).
5. Place the gloves on a cookie sheet and pop the whole thing into the freezer. Prepare to let the gloves sit in there for one full day. 
6. A day later, take the gloves out of the freezer and careful remove the plastic surgical glove. Grandpa Tip: Grandpa, you will need to this step and try hard not to brake the fingers off.
7. Next, round up an interesting collection of tools and instruments for the children to melt the ice and dig for their Halloween treasures. Try these spooky ideas – colored salt (several spoonful’s of salt mixed with a few drops of food color), syringes and medicine droppers, pate knives, small spoons, wide paint brushes, large shallow storage container & a bowl of water.
8. Sprinkle the salt, pour the water, chop, scrape & scrub away to reveal your Halloween treasures!

grandpa’s thoughts:

This is a wonderful activity you can do with your preschool aged grandkids. It's a nice way to teach them about how water freezes when it reaches 32° or below. You can then show them how mixing a little salt and water allows the frozen hand to thaw quickly and reveal the small Halloween items.

This preschool activity is a perfect way to start teaching stem. Your grandkids will learn how to freeze an item at 32° or below and then you can teach them how salt and water mix together can act as a fine.