Colored Ice Balloons

Virginia was highly disappointed when she woke up and found out there was no snow outside. We had just a little snow fall during the night which she got to see and go out in. But by morning it was all gone. I felt really bad for her and wanted to do something cool with her today. So I remembered seeing ice balloons on The Queen Says.

I knew we already had all the supplies in the house. All you need is a balloon, water, and food coloring. Also it helps to be really cold outside or have a freezer. I took our balloon and filled it up with water from the sink. Next comes my first mistake, I took it over to the kitchen table and was going to let Virginia put the food coloring in the balloon. Once I opened the balloon the water went spraying everywhere. I quickly ran back to the sink and let most of the water out and then put the food coloring inside the balloon. 

Next I filled the rest of the balloon with water and tried my best to tie the balloon closed. I did spray water a bit which is messy when it has food coloring in it. But Virginia was giggling the whole time. Once I realized it wasn't cold enough outside for the water to freeze I decided to put it in our freezer. Before I placed the balloon in the freezer I let Virginia feel the balloon and had her make predictions on what was going to happen to the water in the freezer.

Once the balloon was frozen, ( or at least I thought it was ), I cut the top off with scissors and peeled away the balloon. The frozen ball was bright red then I realized the balloon wasn't frozen all the way it had a little leak in the bottom. Lesson learned that I need to leave the balloon in the freezer longer. But it was still cool and left a frozen shell of the balloon for Virginia to explore. She touched it and looked inside and then decided to take it outside to crush. So all in all it was a fun little experiment and just a little messy.