How to Make Ice Blocks

Supplies: 

• Ice cube trays 
• Larger milk cartons or old plastic containers 
  
• Food colouring 
• Squirt style water bottle 

Getting started: 

1. Start by gathering your block molds. Ice cube trays work great for smaller blocks. Look through your recycling bin for larger containers that can make big brick-like blocks such as milk cartons, yogurt containers or old food storage containers. Anything that can hold water can be used as a block mold. Do not worry if the shape is not square or rectangle. Using balloons as molds will result in round, orb-like blocks. Having a variety of blocks will make building more challenging and fun. 
   
2. Fill your molds ¾ full of water and a drop or two of food colouring. For small molds such as ice cube trays you may want to mix up your colours in a large water jug and pour to fill the trays. Putting food colouring drops directly in each tray may result in ice cubes that are too dark in colour.  
   
3. Place filled molds in a freezer, or, if it is cold enough outside (-5 or colder), you can place them outside to freeze. Give the blocks time to freeze. Doing this a day ahead of when you want to use your blocks will give you time to make sure they are fully frozen. 
   
4. Repeat freezing ice blocks until you are happy with the amount of ice blocks you have.  
   

Time to build: 

1. Place all small ice blocks in a large plastic bin or tub to make it easy to carry to a good building spot 
   
2. Stack ice blocks to make towers or other designs.  To help ice blocks stay together, use a water bottle to squirt a small amount of water on top on blocks before placing another block on top.  This will help the blocks freeze together in place. 
   
3. Stand back and admire your frozen creations!