Fill cake pans with small toys and water. Freeze solid then empty onto the grass! Kids love excavating the toys in this ice excavating activity. A great way to enjoy a sunny day.
Here is a fun dinosaur excavating activity!
Ice excavating is one of our FAVORITE outdoor activities! I’m not even sure how many times we’ve don this. It’s always a hit when friends come over and it is easy to always have a block of ice in the freezer, ready to go.
Simply fill a pan with toys and water then freeze. My kids love excavating the toys using small tools. There are so many fun ways to customize this activity!
Ice Excavating Themes:
- Polar Animals
- Jungle Animals
- Dinosaurs
- Fish
Best Tools for Ice Excavating
As with any activity that requires tools, adult supervision is recommended. My kids use tiny hammers (3″ long) from Walmart. They tap them with hammers to break up the ice.
On a warm day the ice will melt quickly in the grass and will break easily. You can also do this activity inside. Place a towel on a cookie sheet then place the ice block on top of the towel. Then sit at the dining table and work together to release all of the toys.
We’ve done this kids activity countless times and it’s always fun to surprise the kids with this in the summer when friends come over.
Easy, inexpensive, hands-on… go ahead and try it!
 Ice Excavating: The Perfect Outdoor Kids Activity
Ice Excavating Activity For Kids
Fill cake pans with small toys and water. Freeze solid then empty onto the grass! Kids love excavating the toys in this ice excavating activity. A great way to enjoy a sunny day.
Cost: $0
Equipment
- cake pan
- small tools
Materials
- small toys
- water
Instructions
- Fill a container (metal cake pans work GREAT) with small toys and/or objects. Fill with water and freeze. A 3" cake pan takes just a couple of hours to freeze completely.
- Once solid, turn upside down and run warm water on the back of the container until the block of ice comes loose.
- Use small tools (mini screw drivers, small hammer) to crack the ice open. Once the kids get a nice crack going, the rest breaks apart really easily and they have no problem retrieving or "saving" the toys.
3 More Outdoor Acitivites for Kids
Welcome! I'm Brandy, mother to 5 darling kiddos and a cute black lab named Toby. My husband is in the Coast Guard so we've lived all over the place, turning each house into a home. I love baking, sewing, making cute things with my kids, and sharing what I've learned with all of you!
i love this idea!!!! so easyyyyy and funnyyy
This is a cute idea! Makes me wish it was summer already. 🙂
I just wanted to tell you we did this and had a ball. We made ours a little bigger and it worked out great! Thanks for the fun idea!http://rubykay.blogspot.com/
that is such a fun activity! great idea!
This is soooo fun!!! I can just see my little Happy Buddy LOVING this! Right now he is obsessed with ice – so this is perfect! Thanks for the summer idea!
Thank you for sharing this idea!! I need to do this for my kids! 🙂
This is truly a creative idea!! How fun! I never would have thought! AWW!! I’m happy to be your newest follower of your delightful blog! Be sure to come by FrouFrouDecor..I love having new friends! I also have a link party every Friday and would love to have you link up!
Hugs,
~Terrell @ FrouFrouDecor~
I’ve seen this idea on lots of blogs and I can’t wait until my daughter is a little older to try it out!
What a great idea, my son would love this!! Your pictures from Alaska are beautiful, we LOVE it up there and hope to get back in the next couple of years.
Okay, this is going to sound weird but we get so much sub-zero weather in the winter that I line up containers on the deck and freeze them with stuff in them and give them to my girls to play with in the bath-tub – kind of like icebergs. 😉
What am great idea! My kids would love to do this, especially since it’s so hot outside!
Ha! That’s awesome!
I do ICE therapy with Wyatt, doesn’t that sound torturous?!!!!
I put his hands in a bowl of ice for sensory integration. He actually doesn’t mind it! But he does like to throw the cubes down to the ground, then laughs when they shatter. What a rascal.
Glad you had such a beautiful trip. Welcome home!
Love, Bree