École Varsity Acres looks forward to celebrating Carnaval, a traditional winter festival over three days February 10 ,11 and 12. This year part of our celebration will challenge classes to build ice sculptures outdoors.

Action:  Freeze your ice blocks this weekend.  The ice will need at least 2-3 days to freeze

For this project to succeed students will need to freeze blocks of ice at home and transport them to school on Tuesday, February 11. There is no limit to how many ice blocks a student may bring, just what is feasible for them to either carry if they take the bus, walk or are driven to school.

Here are a few tips for freezing ice blocks:

• Make lots of space in your freezer so that the container you choose to freeze in can hold itself
• upright to avoid spills
• Choose a container that the ice can easily come out of when frozen, containers should be
• disposable as they may not be returning home
• Alternatively, remove your ice block from its container before transporting to school and place
• in leak proof bags in case of melting during transportation
• A 2L milk/juice carton well rinsed with top cut off makes a useful shape
• Yogurt containers, balloons, rubber gloves, ice cube trays etc... can make interesting forms
• Adding food colouring is permitted

Allow plenty of time for freezing!! A 2L milk carton shape of water will require at least 2-3 days of freezer time (or this may freeze better outside with the current forecast), while ice cubes may only need about 4 hours. Feel free to experiment freezing times with your child!

We look forward to seeing the students collaborate for this creative challenge. Thank you for supporting your child and our Winter Carnaval festivities!