Icy Snowman Winter Sensory Play Science Experiment

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While it may not be practical to build a snowman indoors, you can bring some of the sensory fun inside with this icy snowman decorating activity. After we decorated our snowman, we tried a classic science experiment to see how we could melt him the fastest.

One day before the girls got home for school I froze water in a muffin tin. Then I cut some basic items for snowman decorating out of craft foam (affiliate links). I also grabbed some snowflake confetti (similar version) to add to the play invitation.

Tinker started by touching the cold ice to see how it feels. Then she added the decorated her snowman.

When she was finished I asked her if she’d like to see how quickly we can make her snowman melt. She was intrigued, so I grabbed some salt and some sugar. (You could let your kids come up with their own items to try, but I chose for this activity).

Tinker generously sprinkled sugar on the top circle and salt on the bottom circle. We left the middle circle as it was so we could have a point of reference for comparing.

We set a timer and came back every 5 minutes to check on our snowman.

Tinker enjoyed observing the different signs of melting.

And in the end she observed that the circle with the salt melted the fastest, and the circle with the sugar melted a little faster than the ice with nothing on it.

This is a fun way to encourage kids to observe changes in matter over time and incorporate science investigations into winter play.

Continue the fun with full week of Snowman Activities

Save time and get right to the playful learning with our printable lesson plan sets. Each set includes over 30 playful learning activities related to the theme, and we’ve provided different versions for home preschool families and classroom teachers so all activities are geared directly toward your needs.