Glittery Frozen Water Balloon Sensory Bin

Let’s shake things up with a frozen water balloon sensory bin!

It’s summer and the weather outside is getting hot! Hot summer days mean ice and water play at our house! This glittering frozen water balloon sensory bin is sure to cool off your kids and be super fun! It’s colored ice with glitter! You know your kids will be loving this simple water play activity this summer! 

This activity is part of our summer fun with water group. It’s a collaboration with other kids activities bloggers that brings easy summer activities to your fingertips!! You can see them all over on our All Things Kids Activities website or follow the links at the bottom of this post to see all the fun water play activities we’ve created. 

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Glittery Frozen Water Balloon Sensory Bin

What screams summer fun more than water balloons?  Since I have some little ones that are into putting things into their mouths still I decided to skip the traditional water balloon fight and use them in a new way! A fun frozen water balloon sensory bin way!  Freezing meant I didn’t end up with tiny water balloon pieces all over the yard and it was such a hit with the kids! 

Materials:

• Balloons
• Glitter
• Sequins
• Liquid watercolors
• Funnel
• Water Table or Large Bucket

I chose to use regular balloons vs the smaller/thinner water balloons because I didn’t want to risk glitter filled balloons bursting in my freezer.    We also received our glitter free from CraftProjectIdeas.com but you can find their products at your local Walmart (worth it! Check them out!).

How to Make Frozen Water Balloons:

I used a funnel to first add glitter, sequins, and a squirt of watercolor to each balloon then I attached it to the faucet and filled them with as much water as I wanted.   After that, it was off to the freezer they went!

I ended up with a freezer full of water balloons for a day or so before we did this activity.  The smaller ones I filled were ready in a few hours but I made a few big ones so I gave them all a good 24 hours to make sure they were frozen solid.

When they were completely frozen I used a knife to cut off the balloons.  I cut the top and then just peeled off the remaining balloon pieces.  If it’s a bit hard to pull off just dunk it in some water or under a faucet real quick and it pulls off much easier that way.

Then we dropped them into our water table!

Not only is this ice activity fun but its great for talking about temperature, solids vs liquids, and color mixing!

The girls and I tried to find ways to get the glitter out of the ice by figuring out how to make the ice melt or trying to wash them until the ice melted.  I used this to ask them questions about what was happening.  Does it melt faster if we put it in the sun or shade? We also talked about what happens as the frozen water balloons melted: Does the water change colors? Is there more or less water in the water table than when we started?

The girls decided they needed more water to make “sparkly water & ice soup” so they dumped the water from our DIY water wall buckets into the water table.

Hours of fun! We played with ours until it became one big glittery soup!  If you know me or have been following this blog long then you know I’m generally not a glitter fan but I’m breaking out of my comfort zone here and doing more glitter activities lately! Eek!

Follow the links below to find more fun water play activities!

Simple Addition Water Play from All Things Kids Activities

14 Scented Water Play Activities from Fun-A-Day

10 Water Play Ideas for Babies and Toddlers from House of Burke

Monochromatic Water Bin Color Play from Sugar Aunts

Easy Experiments: Measuring with Water from JDaniel4’s Mom

Rubber Ducky Letter Learning from Mamas Like Me

Looking for more crafts and activities? Check out our index for 100+ plus kids activities! Find activities by theme, materials, skills, age and much more!