Ice cubes can be used for more than cooling off your drink. Ice cubes can be used for games for your preschoolers all the way up to your high school students.
As a teacher, using ice cubes in a non-traditional way will engage the children you are working with and they will enjoy playing with them. A big benefit of using ice cubes as toys is that they are free if you have ice trays!
Ice Cube Games for Preschoolers
1. Edible Sensory Cubes
These edible sensory cubes are colorful and beautiful! One of the best aspects of this type of game is that it can be customizable to suit your needs whether you are working with a certain color, fruit, flower, or more! Your preschooler will love them!
Learn more: Child's Play ABC
2. Color Mixing Ice Cubes
Mixing the resulting colors from melted colored ice cubes will keep your students engaged and guessing which color will be produced. This game can serve as a science experiment while discussing primary and secondary colors at the same time. Your science class will have an artistic spin to it.
Learn more: Teach My Toddlers
3. Ice Smash
Your preschooler will love this messy game as they smash, break and crush ice cubes and ice pieces into smaller pieces. This super fun game is perfect for those hot days when children would enjoy playing outdoors with some cold things.
Learn more: Busy Toddler
4. Hatching Dinosaurs Excavation
This cute dinosaur activity is inexpensive and tons of fun! Freezing mini plastic dinosaur toys in cold water will allow them to be preserved and ready to be excavated by your young learner. You could also discuss the type of dinosaurs you are finding as you free them.
Learn more: Little Bins for Little Hands
5. Ice Cube Painting
Challenging your student or child to paint and create using ice cubes is a simple game that they will get to be creative with. The colored water will provide opportunities for your learner to create beautiful scenes. You can gamify this activity in a variety of different ways!
Learn more: Lessons 4 Little Ones
Ice Cube Games for Elementary Students
6. Ice Cube Relay Race
Setting up an obstacle course or relay-style race for the children is ideal to make this game the best it can be. The students will carry their team's cube through the course without it melting! You could fill an entire ice cube tray depending on how many teams you have.
Learn more: Games 4 Youth Groups
7. Build with Ice Cubes
Another fun experiment that can be done with ice cubes is predicting how tall the cubes can be stacked before they fall to the side. You can create a game with the students that involves seeing how tall they can build a structure out of only ice cubes.
Learn more: Ovia Health
8. Sensory Ice and Sea Scene
This sea scene is the perfect themed sensory experience that combines lessons about the ocean as well as ice play. Animal figurines can be placed around the "icebergs"! This scene is sure to create endless fun and imaginative play.
Learn more: Brisbane Kids
9. Iced Water Balloons
These iced water balloons are bright and inviting. Decorate your space with this iced water balloon game for kids. Using simply food coloring, balloons, and water, you can teach them about different states of matter and predict what will happen when the balloon around the ice pops.
Learn more: Kids Kubby
10. Marbling Effect Painting
Manipulating or leaving the colored ice cubes on white paper will create a marbling effect as the drops run and dry. This game is also a fun art activity as students can learn to experiment with different colors and create different designs that are unique and original.
Learn more: Childhood 101
Ice Cube Games for Middle School
11. Environmental Science Ice Melting Game
Environmental science can have a hands-on approach when looking at a game like this. Your students will answer the question as they learn about the amount of ice left in the polar regions. They will benefit from learning about this topic.
Learn more: Kitchen Counter Chronicle
12. Ice Cube Sail Boats
This simple activity uses a few materials that you probably already have laying around your house or classroom. You can turn this activity into a game by having the students race their sailboats and you can discuss how the shape and size of the sail affect its performance.
Learn more: She Knows
13. How To Melt An Ice Cube Dice Game
This game is sure to give your learners icy hands! On a hot day, playing with ice will be a relief. The students will roll a dice and then refer to this chart that will tell them how to melt the ice cube that they are holding.
Learn more: Little Giraffes
14. Break The Ice
A positive aspect of this game is that you can add anything that you'd like to it. If you are having a themed day, you can encase items that relate to that theme or the children can find random objects, which is just as fun! They will have a blast.
Learn more: Bridgeway Centre
15. Icy Magnets
This game can be a starting point for your first, or next, science lesson involving magnets. Hiding magnets inside ice cubes will keep students guessing as the ice cubes melt slowly and come together. The students will be amazed! Explore what else the ice magnets will stick to!
Learn more: Little Bins for Little Hands
Ice Cube Games for High School
16. Frozen Castles
Captivate your high schooler's attention by challenging them to the game of building the tallest and sturdiest castle. Having them team up or pair up with other students will allow their castle to grow and expand.
Learn more: Almost Unschoolers
17. Lift an Ice Cube Experiment
This experiment will get your high schoolers thinking about density. Working with them to be involved in the scientific process of hypothesis, prediction, experiment, and results will have them engaged and interested.
Learn more: Jet Man
18. Materials Experiment with Ice Cube
This experiment would be a fantastic addition to your next science class when discussing the property of different materials. Let your students witness the different melting rates of two ice cubes that are placed on two different surfaces with various temperatures when you touch them.
Learn more: STEM Learning
19. Stringing Up Ice Cubes
Your students will experiment with chemistry as they attempt to carry out and explain, how they can use a piece of string to lift an ice cube. You can have students work in groups.
Learn more: Science Buddies
20. Oil and Ice Density
Density is an important discussion and lesson, especially because it can be used as a springboard for other important topics.
Learn more: Instructables
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