(Goblin is 31 months)
I have to admit I have been a little bit "Bah Humbug" about the whole Jubilee thing. I'm not anti the Royal Family, its just that 60 years of someone being the Queen doesn't fill me with excitement and the need to rush around having tea parties and hanging bunting. That said I thought I ought to at least make an attempt to keep up the Brit blogger appearance and do a Jubilee related activity. As its been beautiful weather all week I thought Goblin would enjoy some outdoor ice play. So in a Starwars 'Empire Strikes Back' moment I decided to encase the Royal Family in Carbonite (ice) for Goblin to rescue. My idea was a combination of two posts I saw on the blogosphere - the first about coloured ice from
Hurrayic and the second about soap dinosaur eggs from
Red Ted Art.
I filled some balloons with coloured water and stuck some royal family figures from the
Early Learning Centre HappyLand Great Britain Set
inside. Now I made that sound super easy. But believe me it wasn't. I didn't use water balloons that stretch with the weight of water, because I didn't want them to pop in the freezer. So I used regular balloons. These didn't stretch when I stuck the water in, not even the pressure of the water from the tap would inflate the balloons past their unblown-up state. So I had to "Science that Bee-atch" as they say (actually maybe its only me and Hublet that say things like that). I blew up the balloons and while holding the neck of the balloon shut, stretched it round the top of a bottle filled with the coloured water. Then I turned the bottle upside down and let the air in the balloon displace the water in the bottle - SCIENCED!
Of course being a British bank holiday, rather than beautiful sunshine it is tipping down with rain. So our ice play was done indoors. I provided a spray bottle full of warm water, two bowls of salt mixed with red glitter and a jug of hot water for Goblin to pour on the Ice eggs.
Hublet decided it was his mission in life to free the beefeater by spraying the egg at close range with warm water. It made some cool holes in the ice. Goblin chose salt as his weapon of choice but soon discovered that it was really slow working so he moved on to jugs of warm water.
Goblin worked on freeing the Queen (in time for her Jubilee Flotilla). He was quite excited as she emerged from her carbonite ice egg. Hublet and Goblin worked away side by side for some time, 'sciencing' the ice into submission.
Finally all the humans had been freed and they waited anxiously to see if the Corgie would make it!
If you aren't from the UK or the Common Wealth you may be wondering what on earth this post is about. For more information on the Queen's Diamond Jubliee you can check out the official website
http://www.thediamondjubilee.org/
I'm sharing this on
Bobo would love to do this activity. I suspect he would sprinkle the salt on the ice and eat it, though.
ReplyDeleteHaha thats exactly what Goblin did. He drank the water that had been poured over one of the salted eggs - he was not impressed.
Delete"Science that Bee-atch"... how funny! Sounds like something my husband and I would say. We have a lot of ice play in store this week at the Clubhouse, and with the temperatures being over 100 degrees all week, I imagine we'll have to play fast. Your eggs look great by the way, awesome color!
ReplyDeleteWhat fun, your eggs turned out great despite the initial problems :) Looks like a wonderful way to spend the day!! Thanks for stopping by my blog earlier today, and leaving such nice comments, I am a new follower! Have a wonderful week!!
ReplyDeleteNicole
Mama Of Many Blessings
Fun! We need to do this this summer (with non-royalty figurines, I'm afraid...)
ReplyDeleteThanks for linking up to Learning Laboratory =)