Ice Melting Experiment

Update: Last week my computer crashed, this week our modem won’t work. What is going on? I won’t have internet access until Monday when they fix our modem - today I am blogging from a wi-fi enabled restaurant.
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A couple years ago, my friend Trixie hosted an activity for our homeschool group. She prepared a fun ice-melting experiment. At the time, L was more interested in playing with the ice and the various food-colored cups of water than the actual science of the experiment, but he recently came across some photos of the event in my scrapbook and asked if we could do it again.

We put three ice cubes in separate bowls, then used food coloring to prepare three different cups of water: one cold water (blue), one hot water (red), one salt water (yellow). Then we used droppers to measure and dispense the same amount of each kind of water on the ice cubes to see which would melt the ice fastest. Can you guess the answer? Try it with your children and don’t forget to talk about the properties of salt water, the temperature at which water freezes, and the scientific method.

While L did a science experiment, C napped and I prepped dinner. Wow - how great am I at this Mom stuff?! L had lots of fun playing with the ice, and I had one of those rare moments when everything was so perfect that it seemed surreal.