Frozen Fun

Is the cold making anyone one else go crazy? I've been going stir crazy (and so have the kids!) so I went to good ol' Google to find some fun things to try. I thought I would share the ones that we really loved!

Make Your Own Snow

Did you know you can make your own snow by throwing boiling water in the air when the temperature is extremely low (like today!)? I used a measuring cup and boiled some water in the microwave. This was one of those experiments that I had to do and the littles had to watch because I didn't want them to get burned. They thought it was pretty dang cool.

Ice Bubbles

For this we just took regular bubble solution and blew them up into the air. By the time they hit the deck they froze. Another hit with the kiddos. It was even more fun because they could actually participate and not just watch.

Syrup Candy

I got this idea from people who got the idea from Laura Ingalls Wilder's book Little House in the Big Woods. (You know she lived in Iowa for a while as a child right?) You are supposed to use real Maple Syrup for this experiment (you can find some recipes here and here) but I'm not going to the grocery store while its this cold out so I just used good old Mrs. Butterworth. I filled a pie plate with clean snow and poured hot syrup in the dish and then let it sit for 30 minutes. We ended up with frozen syrup that I had to dig out of the dish. It wasn't taffy like but maybe that's because I didn't use maple syrup. It was pretty much just like eating plain syrup just not sticky. I may have to try it again with real syrup.

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Snow Ice Cream

We didn't try this one today but we have made it in the past and its fun. (Its not quite as good as regular ice cream but how fun is it to say you made ice cream out of snow?!). The easiest thing to do is put a big casserole pan or baking dish outside when it is snowing or if you have a place where you have fresh, CLEAN snow go scoop some up. You need about 8 cups of snow. Then just mix it with a can of sweetened condensed milk and a teaspoon of vanilla. Easy peasy!

Hope you all are staying warm and that you're enjoying this winter weather. (And if you're not its only bad for a few more weeks, like 10.)