How to make colourful dinosaur frozen eggs at home
We first got into making frozen dinosaur eggs with our kids when we shared this dino eggs activity by Ashley from Teach Them Little.
It turned out to be one of our most popular activities to date!
So we couldn’t resist sharing this fun twist on a classic, brought to us by Leah from DIY Creative Home Education.
How to make dinosaur eggs using balloons
For a refresh on how to do this very simple yet fun activity, check out the video below or read on for written instructions.
Materials
This dinosaur ice activity is so simple that all you need is:
- balloons
- water
- plastic dinosaur toys (or any other plastic toys)
- access to a freezer
Instructions
Here’s how to create these ice dinosaur eggs:
- Take a balloon and fill it with water.
- Add a dinosaur toy or another plastic toy of your choice.
- Tie up the balloon and place it in the freezer overnight.
- Remove the balloon to reveal a frozen dino egg inside!
Ways to play with your dinosaur ice eggs
We love how Leah and her boys had fun exploring their dinosaur learning theme by adding drops of food colouring and watercolour paints.
As the ice melts, beautiful rainbow patterns appear!
This is a really good way for kids to discover science concepts like solids and liquids. You can also use it as an opportunity to explore colour mixing.
We’ve not tried this ourselves yet, but we think adding salt to your dino eggs would add another fun element to the activity. Salt lowers the freezing point of water, so when you add salt it melts the ice quicker.
Kids can have fun pouring or sprinkling salt onto the ice and watch it make colourful patterns as it melts some parts faster than others.
Doing a frozen dinosaur egg experiment with older kids
One of the great things about making your own dino ice eggs is that they can be used for kids of all ages.
For older kids, you can turn this activity into an experiment by exploring the effect of cold, warm and hot water on the ice.
Give them containers of water at different temperatures. Make sure the hot water is still safe to touch. They can use a thermometer to measure and record the temperature of the water in each container.
Kids can then make a hypothesis (a prediction) about what they think will happen. Which temperature of water will melt the ice the fastest? What happens if you pour very cold water onto the ice? What happens if you add salt to the water?
They can then test their hypothesis and see if their predictions were correct.
Frozen eggs with toddlers and preschoolers
For toddlers and preschoolers, place the eggs in a large tray or another shallow container. Let them explore how it feels, talk about the temperature and ask what they think it is made of.
You can also give them containers and tools to scoop warm water onto the eggs and watch them melt.
With younger children, be sure to remove the eggs from the freezer in advance and leave them out of reach for a little while (long enough to ensure the surface isn’t too cold to touch safely).
To liven up the activity, add watercolour paints or food colouring – just be aware that some will leave stains and may be difficult to get off skin.
If your kids enjoy STEM experiments for kids, they might like making shaving foam fireworks!
Thanks again to Leah from Creative Home Education for sharing this activity idea with us.
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