Summer Break is only a few days away for us! If you are like me, you are looking for lots of ideas to help keep your kids busy and to have fun at the same time. This Penguin Rescue Ice Block Excavation is one of the activities from last summer’s DIY Summer Camp. It’s great for keeping busy, having fun, and cooling off on a hot summer day!
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This is one of my favorite summer activities to set up for the kids! It works for any theme. This time I froze the plastic penguin toys and they used spray bottles, squirters and rocks to “rescue” the penguins from the ice block. Last year we did a similar activity for a shark hunt.
Creating the Giant Ice Block
To make the ice block, you will want to start a day or two before you plan to do the ice excavation activity. Since the toys want to float to the top, it is best to create this giant ice cube in phases. I only needed the three following supplies for this process.
- Dish Pan (from Dollar Tree)
- Water
- Plastic Penguin Toys
Before you start, make sure you have a large space in the freezer to fit the dish pan! Then add a couple of inches of water to the dish pan with a few penguin toys. I let that layer freeze overnight before adding another layer of water and penguins. Then just repeat this process until all the toys are covered in ice.
Ready for the Penguin Rescue Ice Block Excavation!
Once the penguin ice block is created, you are ready for the Penguin Rescue Ice Block Excavation. This really is such a fun activity! You will definitely want to set this up outside. We did ours on a small plastic picnic table.
To easily get the block of ice out of the dish pan let it set outside for several minutes or add a little warm water along the sides of the dish pan. If you do one of those things, it should just slide out onto your surface.
I set out squirt bottles and a sprayer with warm water to help get them started. They also used rocks to help break the ice. Small hammers or tools would work great for this as well.
It is also a good idea to have a couple of buckets of water nearby to use as a refill station. I didn’t do this the first time and constantly had to run back and forth to help refill bottles.
Ice Block Summer Activity
This ice block activity is so great for summer since the ice obviously cools everyone off! Plus the kids love getting wet while trying to rescue the penguins. After the penguins were rescued, my daughter continued playing with all the buckets of water and penguin toys.
We also did another fun ice activity with the penguins. We made ice cube paints and used the penguins as handles. Both of these activities use items from our Dollar Tree Summer Camp Supply List!
