If you’re feeling chilly, think about the people sleeping tonight in the Ice Hotel. Built every winter in Quebec, Canada, the Ice Hotel really is a sparkling hotel totally made of ice and snow. The smooth, almost-clear blocks of ice gleam a faint blue, and are held together with 15,000 tons of packed snow. Even your bed is a block of ice with a deerskin over it (we’ve slept on it). And it’s less than 30 degrees F inside the hotel, since of course there’s no heat!
Wee ones: If you’ve visited 2 of the Ice Hotels, then visit 1 more, have you visited all of them?
Little kids: If your bed is a layer of 6 blocks topped by a layer of 4 bigger blocks, how many blocks did they need to “make” your bed? Bonus: If they build the Ice Hotel in December and it finally melts in March, during how many months can you stay there?
Big kids: If an ice block takes up 3 cubic feet of space, but the fluffy snow they melted to make it took up 6 times as much space, how many cubic feet of snow made that block? Bonus: If the wall of your hotel room is 9 ice blocks wide and 9 block layers high, how many blocks are in that wall?
The sky’s the limit: At the Ice Hotel, even drinks are served in “glasses” made of ice. If you need 2 cups of water to make a small ice glass and 3 cups to make a large one, how many glasses can you make from 60 cups of water, if you make the same number of each size?
Answers:
Wee ones: No, because you’ve seen 3 and there are 4.
Little kids: 10 blocks. Bonus: 4 months.
Big kids: 18 cubic feet of snow. Bonus: 81 blocks.
The sky’s the limit: 12 glasses of each size. Each pair of small-and-large uses 5 cups water total, so 60 cups will let you make 12 sets.
