Winter Science at Home
Make frost on the outside of a can, race ice cubes with salt and sugar, lift an ice cube with a piece of string, and look inside a real snowflake. Three kitchen-table winter experiments that actually work, with the real science explained for grown-ups.
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3 lessons in this unit
Lesson 1 · 40 minCan you make frost in a can?Children crush ice, pack it into two cans, add salt to one, and watch water and then frost appear on the outside. They finish able to explain that the water and frost came out of the air, not through the can.
Lesson 2 · 40 minWhy does salt melt ice?Children race three ice cubes covered in salt, sugar and nothing, then use a pinch of salt to lift an ice cube out of a glass with a piece of string. They finish able to explain that salt melts ice by mixing into the water, and that it makes the ice colder, not warmer.
Lesson 3 · 45 min on a snowy day, or 40 min plus overnight without snowWhat's inside a snowflake?Children catch falling snowflakes on a chilled dark cloth and look at them with a magnifier, or, with no snow, look at freezer frost and grow crystals on a pipe-cleaner snowflake overnight. They finish able to explain that a snowflake is an ice crystal grown from water vapour, and why it has six sides.
Your children turn a tin can into a frost factory with ice and salt, race ice cubes covered in salt, sugar and nothing at all, lift an ice cube out of a glass with a piece of string, and catch snowflakes on a frozen dark cloth to look at them up close. On a day with no snow, they grow crystals on a pipe-cleaner “snowflake” overnight and look at real ice crystals in the freezer instead. You handle anything hot or sharp; the children do the predicting, testing and explaining.
You don’t need a science background. Every lesson tells you what usually happens, what to do when it doesn’t, and the real science in plain words, including the popular explanations that are wrong (salt does not “heat up” ice). By the end, children can explain that the water on a cold can comes out of the air, that salt melts ice by mixing into it and makes the mixture colder, not warmer, and that every snowflake is a crystal of ice built from water vapour, with six sides because of how water particles fit together.