Freezing Fun

Yesterday, as we were driving down the road in our neighborhood we noticed the fountain had large icicles forming.  Now, for you folks who live in places that get actual seasons, this is not going to sound very exciting.  But here in Houston we have only two seasons: 1. the hot and muggy season and 2. the not hot or muggy season.  So, being the cool and adventurous mom that I am (also rash and sometimes stupid), I pulled over and plucked an icicle off for each of my kids, which they proceeded to eat before I realized that it probably is not filtered water!  (If they get amoebic dysentery you'll know why!)

Anyway, the moment gave me an idea for last night, when temperatures were to hit below freezing (very rare here).  So the kids and I did a science experiment befitting the season-deprived status we hold.

First we pulled out some paper cups from the pantry and put the kids initials on them:

Then we put a small toy in each cup:

We filled each cup with water:

Added food coloring (just for fun) and set them outside to freeze overnight:

This morning, we woke up to 12 frozen cups o' fun:

And what better place to play with them than the bathtub?  (after removing the paper cup!):

It's going to get below freezing again overnight, if you want to try it (and if you'd rather avoid the chance of staining anything, you can skip the food coloring part...but color makes everything more fun).

***PS: after the second year of doing this activity, we learned a good lesson in volume: don't use too much water in the cups or it won't freeze.  Dixie cup size is great, especially when filled only halfway.