Jasper is been super into finding “treasure” recently. He and his friends found a Christmas ornament hanging from a tree on a recent hike. The oldest friend decided that Jasper got to keep this AMAZING find. Jasper was so proud. He also recently found a (extremely old and falling apart) piece of rope tied to a tree. He was convinced it was something super special and told me all about how no one but him was allowed to touch it. I’m not even going into the stories of all the SUPER SPECIAL rocks we have taken home with us.
I decided I would make him a little treasure hunt of sorts in honor of St. Patrick’s day. If you have some gold (or yellow) paint, rocks and chipping tools then I’m sure you can make something similar!

Tools:

• Rocks
• Gold (or yellow) paint
• Paint Brush
• Water
• Tub or Container (I don’t recommend glass. It has the potential to break when the water freezes and expands.)
• Tools (for chipping away ice)
• Squirt Bottles (optional)

I started by painting my rocks. We have a big tub of paints from previous projects we have done. Luckily we had some metallic gold that would work great for a St. Patrick’s treasure hunt! If I did this project again, I would probably put some sort if sealant over the paint. When Jasper was chipping away at the ice he sometimes hit the rocks and the paint came right off.
I had saved the plastic container that covered my birthday cake. I thought it would be a good shape for freezing things in! I started by freezing about a cup of water in the base of the container. Once that was frozen I added a few pieces of “treasure” and another cup of water. Again I waited for the water to freeze. Then I repeated this step until I was out of treasure and the container was full.
Just before starting our project I brought the container full of ice out of the freezer and left it in our warm kitchen for a few minutes. This let the ice melt the slightest, allowing it to slide easily from the container. Another good reason to use a disposable container like I did is that if you have trouble getting your frozen creation out of the container, you can break the container and it’s not a big deal.

Jasper went out on our (snow covered) picnic table and was ecstatic to go to work on his treasure hunt. I provided him with a gardening shovel, an odd tool I found in our garage (my husband says it’s for pulling weeds), a spray bottle, and a couple of squirt bottles full of warm water. He went to work chipping and melting away the ice to get to his treasure! He was so proud whenever he was able to extract a piece!