Summer fun in my store

I’ve worked with children in the summer since I was 15 years old, so I know how helpful it is to have fun, summer themed activities. One of my favorite units to do during the summer is related to ice cream – who doesn’t love ice cream?! my kids will do any activity that has to do with ice cream – even math and language activities that they otherwise wouldn’t be interested in.

Over the years I’ve found a couple of activities that my students love, and will do willingly – without even realizing that they are learning.  These are the kind of activities that all teachers want to implement, so of course, I have to share them!

All of these activities are part of my Ice Cream Activity Bundle, they are all also available separately.

Ice Cream Centers – These are meant for kids who are just a little older.  They can design their own ice cream flavor and write about it, create an ice cream glyph, complete two writing prompts, graph the entire groups’ favorite flavors, and play roll-a-cone with a friend.

Ice Cream Patterning – My students love to make patterns, it is a skill that they have really mastered, and they know they can do it successfully, so it has become a confidence builder for them.  This set has a ton of different cones and sundae bowls full of ice cream scoop patterns for the children to complete. It also comes with plain cones and bowls, and additional scoops so children can build their own patterns.  This is an activity that even the youngest children can do successfully – whether they are practicing patterning or not, they can still build cones and work on color recognition.

Letter Cones – This is one of my all time favorite activities, seriously.  Children practice their letter recognition as they match the capital letter on the cone, with the lowercase letter on the ice cream scoop.  Older children can benefit from this activity too, by adding the corresponding cursive cherry to the top of the ice cream cone. In addition to recognizing and naming the letters you can encourage children to make the letter sounds as they pick up the cones and scoops.  Once children begin to blend sounds you can use the scoops to create simple sight words and cvc words for children to read.

Counting Scoops – How many scoops do you want on your ice cream cone? This activity can be done a few different ways, children can match the numeral on the cone to the appropriate 10 frame on the scoop, they can then count the correct number of scoops for each cone.

Ice cream vocabulary cards and spelling practice – These are fun vocabulary words! they are all ice cream flavors, kinds of cones, and types of popsicles.  Children can practice writing their own set of vocabulary cards, and then write all about their perfect ice cream cone.

One of my other favorite activities to do when we explore ice cream is to make our own ice cream. My favorite way to do this is to make ice cream in a coffee can. It is so hands-on and the children get to be a part of making the ice cream, which somehow makes it taste even better! The recipe that I use is from one of my old 4H project books, you can download my recipe card freebie here!

(Graphics for this set by Polliwog Place, Red Pepper, and Allie Hoops)