Dec 2025 / Jan 2026
A Frozen Castle for You!
Academic Standards
Reading Objective:
Students will learn how icicles are formed and identify steps in building a frozen castle from icicles.
Reading Level:
Lexile : 470L; GRL: L
Next Generation Science Standards:
2-PS1-4: Changes caused by heating and cooling
K-2-ETS1: Engineering Design
Vocabulary:
icicle, slush, solid, liquid, gas
Use these questions to check students’ understanding and stimulate discussion:
1. What do workers build the castle with?
icicles
2. How do they make icicles?
They spray water on metal bars.
3. How do they stick the icicles together?
4. What is your favorite part of the castle?
Go online to print or project the Reading Checkpoint.
- Every winter, ice castles are created in different cold places around the country.
- It was all started by a dad who figured out how to make his kids an ice cave in their backyard.
- The cave looked so cool that people from all around came to admire it!
Materials: Copies of the skill sheet, pencils, and sticks and connectors for building. Sticks can be toothpicks, coffee stirrers, raw spaghetti noodles, thin pretzel sticks, etc. Connectors can be playdough, biodegradable packing peanuts, mini marshmallows, soft candy such as Dots, etc.
Overview: Instead of using icicles, kids build creations with small sticks like toothpicks. Instead of slush, they use clay, packing peanuts, or candy to connect them.
Directions:
- Set up workstations with enough sticks and connectors for each group.
- To start the lesson, remind kids that ice castles are built from icicles stuck together with slush.
- Demonstrate how they will build with sticks, connected with your chosen material.
- Explain that before engineers build the ice castles, they sketch a design first. Hand out the skill sheets for this. Send kids to the workstations to sketch and build.
- Can kids build their castles to match the sketches, or will they need to tweak the design? Engineers do this all the time!