Polar Animals – Water Play

I wanted to make ice balloons which I have seen on Pinterest and Facebook but I ran out of balloons. So I made do with plastic bags I found around the house and freezed a couple of polar animals in it. When I took it out from the freezer the following day, I earned myself a few cuts from the sharp edges of the plastic bags. So i had to let it thaw for a while, allowing the sharp edges to smoothen a bit.

It was pretty surprising that such simple things got the lil boy talking so much. I am not sure if he had a sudden burst of interest to talk but that is pretty much fine with me. My initial plan was to have salt by the side to show him how impurities cause ice to melt faster. But I was too tired from the morning routine of entertaining him, cooking and doing household chores to make my house looked a biiiiiiiiit live-able. 😀

So putting the impurities plan aside, I talked about the individual polar animals with cue cards in hand. He, in return, talked about the melting ice into water, the changing shapes of the melting ice and spotting the different polar animals. We also got to talk about sinking and floating, a concept which I am not really too sure if he still understood.

I was taking a break inside but every now and then, he will go to the door and went “Mimi, look!” I love conversations starters by him. 🙂

We were watching Frozen Planet during that week and he went “Apa tu? Whats that?” at the floating and moving ice bergs. I was not sure at that point if he understood my explanation of it being a heeeyuuuuge piece of ice floating on the ocean bed. A home for the polar animals like the harp seal, leopard seal and penguins alike. We also got the chance to watch Eskimos and their igloos.

That week saw me freezing some ice plates and ice-bowls, using recycled ziplock bags and balloons to illustrate the floating ice bergs and igloos respectively.

Then the week after, I did ice-eggs with penguins toob toys in it. It was not easy stuffing the penguin toobs inside. At first I wanted to add in other polar animals because the other polar animals are easier to stuff into the balloons due to the nature of its body but decided against it because the rest are mammals and mammals do not hatch from eggs. I gave up after 2 penguins because it tore on the third one. I added some colors in the balloons. I thought it would looked artistic when I burst the balloons after it freezes. But the ice-eggs eventually were just one monotonous color. 🙁 All was well because he kept picking the eggs now and then, anticipating the “arrival” of the baby penguins.

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