Day 2 Montessori-Inspired Christmas Activity: Its Time For Ice Games

DIY Ice Hockey

Today we will play some ice hockey with kids at home. Yes, in the cosy comfort of your home, you don’t have to step out to a mall and play ice hockey.

Let us make a DIY version of ice hockey made of real ice and have a lot of sensorial fun with the kids!

AGE GROUP – 8 months onwards

MATERIALS NEEDED

A large, not too deep pan/container

• Water
• Wooden digits (optional)
• Something to create goal – I used an old plastic chocolate container. You can also create a goal post with plastic blocks or a pipe cleaner or anything.  Just an enclosed structure
• 2 spoons
• Embellishments (optional). I used scrap coloured foam cut-outs
• Scissors
• Tape
• Bottle cap or marble

TIME REQUIRED FOR ACTIVITY PREPARATION – 10 Minutes + freezing time

HOW and WHAT TO DO 

• Take a large shallow pan and using a tape, stick the digits 2, 0, 2, 1 at the base. This step is optional. I did it just to reinforce the New Year 2018 otherwise there is no significance of this in the ice hockey per say.
• Using a tape, stick the enclosing goals on two sides of the pan. I used old chocolate container cavities. You can even build am enclosure using building blocks or small bowl or anything lying around in your house. I used double sided tape here.
• Pour water in the pan, 3/4th of the pan should be filled with water
• If you want to make it interesting, place some embellishments on top of the water. I put some scrap foam cut-outs to make it colourful.
• Put the pan in the freezer
• After it has frozen, take a bottle cap or a marble and push it around using spoons & score some goals, one side you and another side your child. It is so much fun for adults too!
• You can talk more about Ice Hockey as a sport and add couple of stuff to your child’s vocabulary too!

SKILLS DEVELOPED

• Sensorial
• Motor skills

CAN SOME MATERIALS BE REPLACED?

Already mentioned alternative materials. And you can be much more creative in choosing the materials from your house.

HOW TO TWEAK FOR YOUNGER KIDS

For babies under 1 year, you can skip creating the goals. They can just play around with the bottle cap and a spoon.

HOW TO TWEAK FOR OLDER KIDS

• You can extend this game to a science experiment by giving different texture materials to your child like a marble, course object, wooden object, plastic object, buttons etc, and  let him/ her explore how different materials slide on the ice. Since they have different physical properties, they will slide differently on the ice. And then they can even sort the objects accordingly.

Explore the entire collection of articles: Christmas & New Year 

#toddleractivities