Fun Ice Sensory Play for Toddlers: Toys in Ice

Learn all the benefits of ice play for toddlers and learn how to easily make ice sensory play as you freeze toys in ice. It is a simple sensory play your toddlers will love!

Has your child every wanted to play with ice? It is such a fun sensory activity, especially in the hot summer.

Ice sensory play refers to any type of play that incorporates ice as a key sensory material. Sensory ice play provides a unique tactile experience for children and has many benefits for their development and learning.

In this article, we will explore what ice sensory play is, explain the ice sensory play benefits for kids, and how to create your own ice cube activities for your toddlers!

What is Ice Sensory Play?

Ice cube play uses ice in various forms and textures to stimulate the senses. It provides interesting visual, tactile, and even auditory experiences as the ice is touched, moved, melted, cracked, and crunched.

Typical materials used in ice play include:

• Ice cubes
• Crushed ice
• Ice blocks
• Colored ice
• Frozen toys or objects
• Edible materials frozen in ice like fruit or juice

Ice is an intriguing and ever-changing material for young minds to explore. As it melts, drips, slides, and changes form, it captivates a child’s curiosity and engages their senses.

Plus, there are so many ice activities for toddlers, it is the perfect happy toddler playtime activity.  

Ice Sensory Play Benefits

Playing with ice has many developmental benefits for toddlers. Here are a few of the ice sensory play benefits:

Improves Sensory Processing – The cold and wet textures of ice provide strong sensory input that helps develop a child’s sensory processing abilities. It builds neural pathways that help the brain modulate and interpret sensory information.

Enhances Tactile Skills – Scooping, pouring, squeezing, and playing with icy materials encourages fine motor development and tactile sensory exploration. Kids learn concepts like wet/dry, cold/hot, rough/smooth, and hard/soft through hands-on contact. My kids use a hammer in their little hands to help further develop their fine motor skills with our ice cube games.

Builds Science Concepts – Ice sensory play for kids helps kids to learn basic science concepts like cold, heat, melting, freezing, water to ice, condensation, temperature change, and states of matter. Seeing these changes firsthand is fascinating for young minds. Ice rescues are some of the best ice experiments for preschoolers to learn more about science!

Encourages Problem Solving – Trying to get toys out of frozen ice blocks, using tools to chip away ice, or figuring out how to transport ice engages analytical thinking and problem-solving skills. Kids learn about cause and effect, trial and error, and creative solution finding.

Supports Language Development – Describing and discussing the sensory properties of ice expands a child’s descriptive vocabulary. New words like freezing, melting, slippery, chilly, and frosty build language comprehension.

Promotes Imaginative Play – Ice lends itself to pretend play as kids use it to create imaginary settings and scenarios like icy mountain climbs, frozen forests, ice palaces, or arctic animal habitats. This boosts creativity, narrative skills, and socialization. Your kids will make up so many games with ice cubes!

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How to Make Sensory Ice Activity

One of the top sensory play with ice activities is to freeze toys in ice and have your child “rescue” the toys. Here is how to make your own ice sensory play for 3 year olds:

Materials

• Ice cube tray
• Sea animal toys  
• Water
• Sensory bin
• Stones or toy hammer 

Instructions

Place one sea animal in each section of the ice tray. For this activity, I allowed for part of the sea animal (example: the tail) to stick out a bit so that the child had something to grasp onto when engaging with this activity. 

Fill the ice tray with water. 

Place in the freezer until frozen. Usually it takes a few hours or overnight.

Remove from the freezer and place the frozen sea animal ice cubes into a bin. 

Allow the child to engage with the activity, using stones or toy hammers/objects to try to break the ice away from each sea animal. 

This is a great activity to do outside during a sunny day! 

Other Simple Ice Sensory Activities

There are so many fun games with ice! Here are some easy and fun ice activities for early years to set up:

• Fill different containers or bowls with water and let them freeze into ice blocks. Give kids plastic animals, cars, or tools to try and extract from the ice.
• Make colored ice cubes by freezing water mixed with food coloring or fruit juice. Let kids handle and manipulate the ice cubes while sitting at a sensory table. This is usually such a fun ice cube food coloring experiment for toddlers!
• Hide small toys like mini erasers, plastic insects, or beads inside an ice mold and then give kids pipettes or tweezers to try and dig them out as the ice melts.
• Set up a pretend icy habitat with baby dolls, stuffed penguins, plastic polar bears etc. and give kids ice blocks to incorporate.
• Freeze a giant ice block with various fruits, herbs, flowers or edible glitter suspended inside. As it melts, kids can observe the objects emerge and try tasting. This is another one of the cool science experiments with ice for toddlers.
• Insert wood blocks, Lego pieces or other toys in a thin layer of water inside a baking tray and freeze. Kids can then try to pry the objects out.

For preschoolers, try more hands-on explorations like making ice paint to color with, playing freeze dance with ice cube cues, or going on nature walks to examine frozen puddles, icicles, and frost.

Set up an ice excavation bin with shovels and tools for mining icy dirt. And don’t forget classic icy science experiments like watching objects freeze in real time or making handprint imprints with ice cubes pressed into clay.

Ice Cube Sensory Play FAQs

Ice Sensory Play Wrap-Up

The possibilities for learning and discovery with ice sensory play are endless! The unique properties of ice provide cool multi-sensory experiences that fascinate and engage every child.

So grab some ice cube trays and let the icy explorations begin!

Check out these other sensory bin ideas: