Frozen Gelatin Fossil Excavation and Frozen Gelatin Sensory Play

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I've seen so many awesome posts on ice excavation lately, and I was wondering if I could come up with a twist on that when I thought of gelatin.  We had so much fun with our Gelatin Play and our Fizzing Gelatin that I thought it would be worth a shot at freezing gelatin to see what it would do.  We made the gelatin as normal, with one fabulous new step - oiling the cups we were using before pouring the gelatin in.  One of my awesome readers, Med, replicated our Gelatin Play here and solved my the-gelatin-sticks-to-the-cups problem by using cooking spray on the cups.  We used regular cooking oil and it's genius (thank you, Med!)!  So we oiled the cups, set our creatures inside, and poured the liquid unflavored gelatin mix (made following the directions on the box) and stored them in the fridge until they set (about 4 hours), then moved them to the freezer overnight.

It might have worked to move them immediately to the freezer, but I figured I'd hedge my bets by letting them set in the regular fashion first.   They come out looking really neat - just like a frozen fossil - don't you think?

And here's another shot of two "fossils" we excavated the following day.

I set S up with a foil covered cookie tray (with an edge to contain water - the foil was to make the clean up of the leftover gelatin easier), a spoon, a container of warm water, and three of our frozen creatures who needed her help!

S alternated between drizzling the warm water over the gelatin and dunking the gelatin in the water.  The outer edges of the gelatin began to defrost and left a crazy cool-to-the-touch layer of squishy thawed gelatin.  It seemed a bit tougher than regular gelatin - it actually reminded me a lot of the texture of water beads!

S would break chunks off with her hands and squish them around a bit.

You could really dig into it once it had defrosted a bit from the warm water.

Once enough of the gelatin had been defrosted and picked off - she could use her hands to pull ant out!

 A successful rescue!  Ant is free and ready for a warm bath (it was cold in his gelatinous confines!)

The frozen gelatin had a strange texture, as I mentioned above, and it also seemed to absorb water like a sponge.  You could squeeze the water out, then submerge it and do it all over again.  It was really weird, but fun enough that even I had to do it repeatedly!

Squeeeeeze!

Not to mention, the crystals of ice and gelatin were so pretty!

Since gelatin is edible (but rather gross plain, so don't eat it - ew), X got to join in on the fun.  I wouldn't bother freezing a creature to dig out in the gelatin for a baby - but plain frozen unflavored gelatin would definitely be a fun summer sensory experience for the little guys.

X had a lot of fun touching the rubbery outer layer (we gave him one that was slightly defrosted).

He really does make the best faces.  Here he's saying "ooh!" as he investigates a chunk of defrosted gelatin he's broken off.

The biggest "fossil" we made was using one of the dinosaur skeletons we'd used to make our Plaster Dinosaur Fossils - and he is a BIG guy.  He took two days to excavate, but S had a great time.  I loved that this activity lasted quite some time - several hours over two days.  When S tired of working at getting the big dinosaur out, I just popped him in the freezer for the next day.  For reference, she was interested/able to excavate two smaller fossils each day - and I was able to make the big dinosaur and four smaller fossils out of one small box (four packets) of unflavored gelatin.

If you've got a dinosaur fan at home, For even more dinosaur fun, be sure to check out our No Sew Dinosaur World Playmat and our Dinosaurs and Sticky Mud Small World!

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Please always supervise your infant/child at play.  Please stay within arms reach and never leave infants/children unattended.

Fizzing Gelatin

Young Toddler+

S and I are both HUGE fans of baking soda and vinegar.  I was trying to think up a new way to play with it, and decided to see what it would do if I threw gelatin into the mix.  Turns out, it's really fun (at least we think so!).

To make fizzing gelatin, you'll need:

Gelatin (I bet you could use Jello, too)

Baking Soda

Vinegar

Food Coloring/Liquid Watercolors (optional)

When you are making the gelatin, just make sure to dissolve a hearty amount of baking soda in the hot water step (for the gelatin pictured, I dissolved somewhere between 1/2 to 3/4 cup).  Not all of it will dissolve - that's OK.

Refrigerate as normal, remove from whatever mold you've used (we used plastic Solo cups) and you're ready to add vinegar!

We added about a cup of vinegar all at once.

If you press your hands down, it feels like Pop Rocks!  It's so fizzy.  The gelatin slowly releases the baking soda, so it kept on fizzing for a long time (for more than 5 minutes!)

If you squeeze a handful of the gelatin, little pieces hop out of your hands.

It's such a bubbly, fizzy sensory experience, we really enjoyed it as a variant on our traditional baking soda and vinegar play.

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Please always supervise your infant/child at play.  Please stay within arms reach and never leave infants/children unattended.

Gelatin Play

Infant+

At one point when S was a toddler and had been very sick, we fed her some Jello.  After she'd recovered, she was very interested in playing in it.  We tried that out, and it was a lot of fun, but it was SO sticky because of the sugar content that I wanted to find a better way.  So I decided to make her just plain unflavored gelatin to play in.  I hid things inside to dig out and that's how our gelatin play evolved. 

 Plain gelatin doesn't leave that sugary residue that Jello does, but it really does not smell pleasant (in my opinion), so I thought this time I'd add some Duncan Hines Frosting Creations.  I added just a little of the Cotton Candy flavor, since it was the only blue one I could find, and it actually made it really beautiful.  I don't know if the pictures do it justice, but it just glowed.  It was really neat.  It also smelled pretty.  :)  If you don't want to spend the extra money on the Frosting Creations, you can do just plain gelatin, or you can do food coloring or liquid watercolors.

Ingredients for gelatin play:

unflavored gelatin

(Optional:  Food Coloring/Liquid Watercolors/Frosting Creations Packet)

Helping me stir to dissolve the gelatin.  I'd found these cute little fish for S at a second hand store this past weekend and knew they'd look cute in little blue gelatin oceans.

After refrigerating overnight, they were ready to go!

I just used little Solo cups for the molds, but they are a little hard to get out.  I suspect a silicone mold would work better.  This was X's first experience with gelatin.  He was a little weirded out at first, so sis showed him the ropes.

After that, he was ready to dive in!

He had so much fun watching her play.  She was making "gelatin clouds" that were raining.

Showing him a big chunk of it.

S was putting pieces on her feet and squealing.  "Mama, it's cold and MUSH-ITY!"

Always so proud to be able to play with "big kid stuff".

It was SO pretty with the Frosting Creations added!

Always interested in the full body experience, S needed to get hands AND feet involved in the play.

The picture below is from another gelatin playtime, I think before X was born.  Here we've added red food coloring, glitter, and some plastic animals that S selected.

And another gelatin playtime, probably around 18 months.  That time I did just clear gelatin with colored buttons and sequins "buried" inside.

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Please always supervise your infant/child at play.  Please stay within arms reach and never leave infants/children unattended.