Making Frozen Dinosaurs

This half term my extra curricular activity for the young kids is 'Dinosaur Club'. We've been doing some really fun activities, such as excavating the chocolate chips from cookies using a toothpick. But nothing could match the excitement that was present in my classroom today when we discussed the ice age and I presented them with loads of blocks of ice filled with frozen dinosaurs.

They're really easy to make. Just get some tubs and fill them with water and dinosaurs. Then freeze them. I borrowed a friend's freezer because ours is only big enough to fit three samosas inside.

I wish I had thought to take some pictures of the kids with the frozen dinosaurs. But there was TOO MUCH EXCITEMENT and I just got caught up in it.

I asked the children how they thought we should get the dinosaurs out from the ice. One boy suggested we held them in our hands until they melted. We did that for a while, but our hands got too cold. Then another boy suggested we smashed them out with stones. So we put them in the water tray and did that. It was so exciting that some children nearly cried!

After all the dinosaurs were out of the ice, we filled the water tray with water and pretended the remaining ice pieces were icebergs and the dinosaurs were floating on them (I'm not sure of the historical accuracy of this particular activity!)

If you've got kids under seven either at home or as a teacher in school I'd recommend you freeze some dinosaurs one night and play with them the next day. It might well be the most fun thing ever! If you had the means you could also add glitter and food colouring to the ice to make it extra exciting.