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Includes statements from Development Matters (birth to age five) and the relevant ELGs in full, for the Making ice lollies adult led activity
Early Learning Goal links
- Understanding the World ELG: Past and Present
- Understanding the World ELG: People, Culture and Communities
- Understanding the World ELG: The Natural World
- Expressive Arts and Design ELG: Creating with Materials
Characteristics of effective learning
Play, Be, C Units provide enabling environments with teaching and support from adults. Reflecting on the characteristics of effective teaching and learning, children will have opportunity to learn and develop by:
- Playing and exploring – children investigate and experience things, and ‘have a go’.
- Active learning – children concentrate and keep on trying if they encounter difficulties and enjoy achievements.
- Creating and thinking critically – children have and develop their own ideas, make links between ideas, and develop strategies for doing things.
Early Years Foundation Stage Statutory Framework: accessed November 2024. Available under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
What you will need
- Ice lolly moulds or ice pop bags or
- Alternative ice lolly moulds such as ice cube trays or disposable cups or yoghurt pots
- For alternative moulds you will need: lolly pop sticks and foil
- Sugar free cordial made up with water as instructed on the bottle or pure fruit juice in a cup for each child- check for any allergies.
- Pipettes
- A freezer
- The glaciologist poster
Duration
- 10 minutes or so to make the ice lollies
- Freezing time
- 5 to 10 minutes to discuss and eat the lollies the next day
STEM vocabulary to introduce
Water, wet, liquid, flowing, pour, fill, freezing, shape, colour, cold, solid, hard, melting, dripping, smooth, shiny
Before you start
Show the children the glaciologist poster and tell the children that they are going to be glaciologists for this activity.
Ask the children if they know what a glaciologist does. A glaciologist is a scientist who studies glaciers. Glaciers are huge lump of ice found in mountains or near the poles which move slowly towards the sea.
Tell the children of the attributes. Glaciologists are:
Curious: glaciologists want to know more about how the ice in glaciers is made.
Observant: glaciologists look at the ice carefully to see what colour and shape it is.
Resilient: glaciologists need to be able work in cold and windy conditions. They need to be quick to recover and get back out in the cold again each day.
Explain that today they will be curious and observant in their glaciologist task. They are going to learn how to make ice lollies.
What to do – step 1
Give each child a small container of juice, a pipette and an ice lolly mould or section of an ice cube tray to fill. Model how to use the pipette. Ask the glaciologists to fill the mould with juice using the pipette. This is more accurate than pouring and gives you chance to discuss the process with the glaciologists while they are working. It also develops fine motor skills!
You could ask:
- How will we turn our juice into ice lollies?
- Where should we do that?
- How long will it take?
- What shape will your ice lolly be when it is ready?
- What colour will it be?
- What do you think it will feel like?
Step 2
If you are you are using a container as an lolly mould, cover it with foil and push a lolly stick through the top of the soil into the liquid. If you are using an ice cube tray, cover the whole tray with foil, smooth it over so you can see the sections, then push the lolly sticks into the centre of each section.
You might want to label the lollies with the children’s names. Put the lollies into the freezer overnight.
Step 3
When they are frozen, give the glaciologists their lollies. While they are eating them, you could ask:
- What shape is your ice lolly?
- What colour is it?
- (If you have a stick) How does the stick stay in?
- Do you think all juice would freeze to make an ice lolly?
- Is you ice lolly melting? Why?
Remember to refer to the children as glaciologists and praise them for using the attributes. You could say things like:
“You have been curious like a glaciologist and found out how you freeze juice to make an ice lolly.”
Other things to try
You could investigate making ice lollies using: fizzy water or pop, fruit puree, smoothie mixture, yoghurt or milk.
You could investigate what happens if you add chopped fruit, sprinkles, chocolate chips etc to your liquid before you freeze it.
You could make stripy ice lollies by adding layers of different liquids. You will need to freeze each layer before you add the next one.
The science of glaciology
We have put together some useful information about the science of glaciology to accompany this activity. Don’t worry, this is for your information only and to help you answer any questions children may have. We don’t expect you to explain this to the children in your setting!
Why does water freeze?
The molecules in water are constantly moving. In a liquid, the molecules move more, and faster, than in a solid. As the liquid cools down the molecule movement slows down. When the water temperature reaches around 0°C, the molecules are closer together and weak bonds form between them. They form a solid that we call ice.
Do all liquids freeze?
No, not all liquids will freeze.
When liquids begin to freeze, a tiny ice crystal forms first. This ice crystal then grows as other particles in the liquid attach themselves to the ice crystal. Different liquids freeze at different temperatures. Water freezes faster than liquids with salt or sugar in them. Liquids with a higher viscosity (thick and sticky in consistency, such as honey or washing up liquid) freeze more slowly than less viscous liquids and some will not freeze at all.
Why does ice melt?
Ice melts when the movement of the water molecules is enough to break the weak bonds between them. As the ice heats up the molecules start to move faster. At around 0 °C the movement of the molecules can break the bonds and the molecules can move further apart. The ice melts and forms liquid water.
How does licking the ice make it melt faster?
Your tongue contains more heat energy, causing the molecules to move faster and the bonds between molecules to be broken faster to form liquid water.
Why does ice melt faster on the surface?
During melting, the water molecules absorb heat energy. This heat is transferred from the water, air or object surrounding or touching the ice and is why an ice cube melts more quickly on the outside and retains its coldness and solidity longer at the centre.
