Invitation to Make Snow Cones

If you've got snow, why not bring some indoors for some fun snow cone sensory play!

Invitation to make snow cones.

What you need:
- snow (you could also use crushed ice)

- water and food colouring
- muffin tins
- plastic cups
- selection of scoopers and tools
- glitter glue and glitter
- a large storage box to contain the mess (we use the IKEA SAMLA under-bed storage box)

The set up.

How it works:

My 4 year old loves any type of water play so I knew this would be a hit with him. I loved the fact that it was so easy to set up! I collected some clean snow from outside, gathered the scoopers and tools, mixed in some food colouring with water, and finally added some glitter and glitter glue pens and it was ready! Containing it all in a box is definitely a lifesaver when it come to clean up time!

My little man started off by filling the muffin tin with scoops of snow. This was a good sensory experience as well as working on his fine motor skills.

Scooping up the snow.

I think the next part was definitely his favourite. He used the pipettes to add coloured water to the snow cones. This was a nice link to colour mixing as he decided to make some new colours too. During this process we discussed what flavour each colour was.

Colouring his snow cones.

Exploring the different tools.

Once all the snow cones were coloured and the flavours were decided, it was time to add the toppings. My son enjoyed using the glitter pens as 'icy icing' and then shaking 'glitter sprinkles' on top.

Adding 'icy icing'.

Glitter sprinkles galore!

Once he had finished his muffin tray of snow cones he continued to explore the available tools. He soon realised that the Learning Resources tools could make 'snowballs' so he wanted to make snowball ice creams. These are often my favourite times when he is just exploring and excitedly discovering his own creative ideas.

Making snowballs.

Perfect for ice creams!

And of course once we were all done making things with the snow, he was more than pleased to just tip all the colours into the big bucket of snow and continue to work on his transferring skills.

Mega colour mixing.

Working on his transferring skills.

If you are located near snow I would highly recommend this activity. Easy to set up but so much fun to play with!