beatin' the heat

We currently are without air conditioning--we're looking into getting it fixed, but we might have to suck it up until next summer.

It's 84 degrees downstairs and 90+ upstairs.

I've had to get creative to beat the heat!

Today I let the girls play with this ice sensory bin that I have been making all week! It kept us all cool for an hour or so.

It took me so long to make because I wanted layers of colors. So I froze a red layer, then an orange on top of it, then yellow, and so on. I put two little rubbery frogs in each layer (from the party section at Target, 12 for $2). The girls had to "excavate" the frogs using things from around the house--a toy hammer, a rock, a bowl of water, a bowl of salt.

It was fun experimenting with the different tools and seeing what melted the ice best! We found that salt made a huge impact in a short amount of time.

Look at those rainbow layers! Food coloring makes a huge mess, so they played with it on an old towel on the grass and ended up with blue fingers :)

ETA: I just wanted to add that this was not an original idea. I came across it on a blog a while back but when I went looking for the post, I couldn't find it. Otherwise I would have linked to the original post. It was either on www.notimeforflashcards.com or www.notjustcute.com. Those are both fabulous blogs with great ideas for fun and learning!