Frozen Dinosaur Eggs

Something a little different from me today! As we're now in the summer holidays, and I'm having a bit of a break from making packed lunches (setting aside the many picnics!) I thought it would be nice to share some of the non-food related fun that we've been getting up to recently.  I've been surfing Pinterest, collecting ideas for interesting activities to keep us occupied over the summer (there seems to be an unending supply of amazing ideas out there), and I thought it was about time I got round to trying some.

The activity I'm sharing today was incredibly simple to put together, and just needed 5 minutes of planning the night before.  We are enjoying the most amazing heatwave here at the moment, so I wanted to try something fun with ice.  I keep spotting great ideas for freezing all sorts of things in ice to excavate, but the one that caught my eye most recently was frozen dinosaur eggs.

Supplies:

Balloons
Small Plastic Dinosaurs
Water
A Freezer

Preparation:

Take a balloon and stretch the neck so that you can pop a dinosaur inside.  If your dinosaur is quite pointy, be careful not to poke any holes in the balloon!

Place the neck of the balloon over the spout of your cold tap.  Slowly fill the balloon until the dinosaur is floating freely in the water.  Be careful not to overfill.

Tie the balloon up and place in the freezer until solid (overnight at least).  Repeat until you have made as many dinosaur eggs as you'd like.

Once frozen, remove from the freezer and cut the balloons off to reveal your frozen dinosaur eggs.

As you can see, mine didn't come out quite as beautifully as the ones I've seen on Pinterest, but I thought it just added to the charm! Small Child was really excited to see them and took them straight outside to begin the process of excavating the dinosaurs.

I challenged him to think of ways to get them out.  First he asked for a sharp knife, but I thought that sounded rather dangerous so he went rummaging around in the shed looking for something to poke them with instead.  He found a couple of metal tent pegs, which he used to tap and bash at them but our eggs were frozen solid so they didn't make much of a dent in them.

Next, he asked for some hot water in a squirty bottle.  He had fun spraying the eggs and watching them melt a little, but it all seemed to be taking too long for his liking, so he went back to the shed looking for something to implement plan D.

Finally, Small Child found a solution in the form of an old hammer! He brought each dinosaur egg over to the concrete and bashed it about until the dinosaur was free.  He seemed to be having a whale of a time smashing up the eggs!

He was most disappointed when they were all gone, and requested I make some more as soon as possible! This activity really sparked his imagination - he spent a good hour playing with his dinosaurs and the remnants of the ice - an ice age in the middle of summer!  They may not have looked as pretty as Pinterest, but I would call that a big success!

Have you got any fun activities planned to keep your children entertained over the summer? I'm sure I'll be turning to Pinterest for help many times before the summer is over!

Grace