Bury Your Child’s Plastic Toys in Ice
It’s getting hot, the rates of the damn virus are dropping in some areas, but in others, kids get bored, swimming pools and bicycles are sold out, and life feels like it will never be normal again. It’s time to bury your little one’s toys in ice.
I got this idea from my parent Megan Rothgerber on Instagram , who froze about a dozen plastic animals (plus at least one Pikachu) in a large block of ice. As far as I can tell, she then placed the aforementioned piece of ice on a 9 x 12 plastic dish lid, handed her son a hammer, and said something like, “Keep digging, young archaeologist.” And he did:
Choose a baking dish, mixing bowl, plastic storage container, or other freezer-compatible fixture – it just needs to be deep enough for the toys to be completely submerged in the water. I suggest lining the container with plastic wrap or wax paper before filling with water and freezing the toys; this should help with ice removal when it’s time to start breaking.
Besides plastic animals and Pokémon, there are a few other things you can bury:
- Small plastic dinosaurs
- Hot Wheels
- Lego minifigs
- LEGO Duplo bricks
- Little erasers in the shape of fun things
- Pretty much any little toy you can get from old school vending machines at the grocery store.
Don’t give up anything too good, too valuable, or too loved. Any toys you use here may be damaged, so choose the little cadets at the bottom of the toy box that kids have long forgotten. (Maybe this is what some of these cheap birthday gifts are actually for?)
One final caveat: Obviously, whenever you pass a hammer, screwdriver, or any other tool to your young child, you must take some precautions. You can ask them to stand up and break the ice at table height rather than ground or floor so that they have better control of the tools. And of course, practice good and careful control so that they don’t get too carried away with it and start destroying your furniture.