Frozen sensory play is a great way to keep little ones entertained and engaged. This sensory activity for preschoolers uses ice and beads to create a fun, interactive sensory setup that’s fabulous for building fine motor skills!

This activity is inspired by one of the activities in Play into Kindergarten Readiness, my preschool program. In Play into Kindergarten Readiness, we explore all sorts of different sensory activities, but one in particular—called Free the Frozen Toys—is always a hit with my little ones.

Since little Norah absolutely LOVES making bracelets and necklaces lately, I thought we would switch it up and try freezing some beads this time instead. So today, I bring you: Free the Frozen Beads!

And let me tell you, this sensory activity was just brimming with learning opportunities!

Just before we get into it, you’ll want to grab this Sensory Bins 101 freebie. It is filled with sensory bin inspiration as well as tips and tricks to make sensory play a success—and less messy! Get your copy right here:

A Frozen Sensory Activity for Preschoolers

Alright, let’s get into the sensory fun!

A quick heads up: you will have to prep for this one in advance to give the water time to freeze. So start the day before you want to enjoy the activity, and you’ll be golden.

Supplies

For this frozen sensory activity, you will need:

• Water
• A freezer
• An ice cube tray or some small containers
• A cookie sheet or another large dish
• An assortment of beads
• Bowl of warm water
• Paintbrush
• Pipecleaners (optional)
• Mittens (optional)

Directions

Step 1. Prep by freezing some beads in water.

To prep, you’re going to freeze some beads in water overnight. An ice cube tray works perfectly for this, but since I could not find ours (how we managed to lose an ice cube tray, I will never know!), I used some little containers instead.

The beads will either float or sink, so I find this works best by freezing 1/3 of the cup at a time.

Fill your ice cube tray (or containers) about 1/3 of the way full, sprinkle some beads in, and then pop it in the freezer.

Once that is frozen, fill it about 2/3 of the way full, sprinkle in some more beads, then pop it in the freezer once more.

And once THAT is frozen, you can fill it up completely and sprinkle a few more beads in for good measure.

Step 2. Set up the frozen sensory activity.

Now that your beads are all frozen in water, it’s time for the FUN! Well, almost… a teeeeny tiny bit more setup first.

Grab a cookie sheet or another large dish and pop out your ice cubes onto it. If the ice cubes don’t want to come out, run a bit of warm water over the back of the tray to help loosen them.

Next, fill a small bowl with warm water and put that on the tray along with a paintbrush or two.

You could add a few pipecleaners to the setup to encourage bracelet-making or save that part for a little later.

Okay, NOW you’re ready for the fun!

Step 3. Play!

Let your little one have fun exploring the frozen sensory setup—no instruction needed!

While playing with this sensory setup, your child might:

• Explore the feeling of the cold ice cubes and warm water.
• Notice the different colored beads and spot their favorite color hiding within the ice.
• Learn that warm water helps to free those beads that are close to the edge of the ice.
• Discover that ice cubes can spin REALLY fast when they start to melt! And then they may go find a little toy so it can go for a spinning ride on the ice cube…

Anything goes!

And if they decide they would like to wear a pair of mittens? That’s perfectly okay too.

As your child plays, they will be strengthening their fine motor skills as they use the paintbrush and their pincer grip to free the beads.

This alone is a wonderful sensory activity for preschoolers, but there are lots of other learning opportunities you can explore with a prompt or two.

Extension Activities

To extend this activity, you could:

• Sort the beads by color as they are freed.
• Count how many beads there are in each color. Which color has the most beads? The least?
• Add some pipecleaners so your little one can make a bracelet—perhaps they will make a pattern!

You will be practicing color recognition, counting, one-to-one correspondence, fine motor skills, creativity, patterning, and building vocabulary all along the way.

Now THAT’S a learning-filled sensory activity if I do say so myself!

But for your little one, they’ll just know that they’re having fun playing (and that spinning ice cubes is AWESOME).

If you want even more activity ideas for your preschooler—engaging, fun, and planned for you day-by-day—you’ll want to check out Play into Kindergarten Readiness! The preschool curriculum covers all core preschool skills in ONE 20-minute activity a day.

Take a peek at Play into Kindergarten Readiness and Everything Preschool:

https://shop.howweelearn.com/collections/everything-preschool

Thank you so much for reading, sweet friend. I hope you try this frozen sensory activity with your preschooler!

xo
Sarah