When ice cubes melt against a slippery surface like metal, they start to naturally slip and slide around. Turn that little scientific fact into a “skating party” by freezing small plastic animals in the ice ahead of time!

I filled an ice cube tray with water and then after about 2 hours, when the cubes had started to set but weren’t frozen solid, I pressed a toy animal into the top of each. A set of arctic animals fit nicely with the icy winter theme. I wish I’d had a few penguins to include, too! Let freeze completely overnight.

At first I set these out on a plastic tray, where Veronika was immediately delighted to see favorite animals in the ice. But it quickly became apparent that we needed a metal cookie sheet for them to “skate”.

The ice started to melt almost immediately once we made that switch, and just a gentle tap of the finger sends your animals “skating”.

Veronika’s favorite was the snow hare, which she hopped and skated all about. Travis loved making the animals take wild skating spins across the tray.

He also wanted to try freeing them from the ice, another oldie-but-goodie ice game.

And we all laughed at the way the ice animals could spin and move.

In sum, a fun quick activity before even heading off to school!