Printable Father’s Day Card

 

Here’s a last minute Father’s Day card inspired by our recent ice cream unit.

Click to download

Favorite Ice Cream Flavors

At the beginning of our ice cream unit I asked you to tell me what your favorite flavor of ice cream was in our survey. The kids were excited to see the results come in:

Other was the big winner!LOL! Of course with the variety of different flavors of ice cream out there, this was not a big surprise! ;)

If you want to do something similar with your toddlers and preschoolers, I would suggest using a small polling pool and 3-4 different choices.

I’ve got a couple of graph choices for download. Just color the ice cream cone and write the flavor underneath.

If you’ve missed any of our ice cream activities, you can find most of them listed on my ice cream page. Have you done any ice-cream-related activities? I’d love to hear about them if you have.

Ice Cream Counting Activity

Here’s a fun way to practice counting and fine motor skills at the same time. We placed a scoop of playdough ice cream in the green bowl. We had a bowl full of “cherries” aka red pom poms.  I would ask my daughter to place ______ cherries on her scoop of ice cream. You could also use a large dice, Educational Cube inserts, or number cards and have those tell your child how many cherries to place on their sundae.

(click to go to download page)

 

I’ll have one or two more ice cream themed posts and then I’m passing the baton on to 2Teaching Mommies who will be adding more printables to this theme. We hope that the combination of our ideas and printables will give you lots of fun options to do with your children over the summer.

Ice Cream Puzzles and Sorting Mat

We’ve been having a blast with our ice cream unit---so I’m going to be continuing it next week too. Here are a couple more printables that we will be using:

1. We’ll be talking about how we are able to feel hot and cold because we have nerves in our body. We’ll holds some ice cubes. How does it feel? What happens to our fingers if we hold it too long? Can you name some things that are cold?

Next we’ll fill a cup with warm water/tea/hot chocolate. How does the outside of the cup feel? (warm). This will be a nice opportunity to talk about being careful around hot things. Can you name some things that are hot?

After our hot/cold discussion, we’ll sort the pictures included in the download and place them in the appropriate section of the mat.

I’ve got four ice cream mini-puzzles. I’ve included a pocket page for those who might be creating a lapbook or notebook. You can also create a mini-puzzle book with a file folder (see my mini-lapbook instructions on Homeschool Share. Scroll to the middle of the page under Jungle Puzzles.)

All these ice cream ideas will be perfect to do again in July to celebrate National Ice Cream Month (because we need another reason to have to eat ice cream---lol)

 

Messy Ice Cream Sensory Box

One thing I like about summer is that we can do all our messy fun things outside! Another activity we did during our ice cream unit was to create a shaving cream hide and seek sensory box.

I picked up these ice cream themed mini-erasers at the Target Dollar Spot. I can’t resist purchasing mini-erasers. They are so cute.

Then I filled a tub with shaving cream and scattered the mini-erasers in the white fluffy mess. You should have seen the girls’ faces when I said they could search in the box for all the ice cream erasers. They were thrilled!

She found one! (Trust me on this---lol!)

Lots of fluffy, white fun! A wonderful twist on our normal sensory boxes and a fun addition to our toddler and preschool ice cream unit.

Pretend Play: Preschool Ice Cream Store

We have been having fun with our toddler and preschool ice cream theme. Whenever we go to the ice cream store, my girls are fascinated with all the colors and flavors of ice cream available. I knew they would have so much fun running their own ice cream shop. With just a little advanced preparation, toddlers and preschoolers can run their own ice cream store right in their own home---or outside, which is where my girls set up their shop.


First make sure to have several “flavors” of ice cream made ahead of time. Our ice cream consisted of 4 scented playdough creations.

I made one batch of vanilla-scented playdough. I used my regular playdough recipe and added some vanilla extract to the water. One batch fits perfectly in a pint container.  The chocolate playdough smells soooo good! I used the chocolate playdough recipe from Pre-Kinders.  Mint was the basic version plus mint extract, and for the strawberry---I forgot to buy the strawberry-flavored Kool-aid---but that’s what I would have used. Doesn’t it look good?
I made a little menu so the girls could take ice cream orders.

I’ll have a sundae please! :) I printed this on cardstock and laminated. The girls used a dry-erase marker, but a wet-erase or dry-erase crayon would work too.

  
I picked up a couple of ice cream scoops and bowls from the Dollar Tree.


It’s hard work scooping out ice cream! I love how her little tongue sticks out when concentrating. She was very excited about having a pretend playdough ice cream party!

I filled an empty Hershey’s Cocoa container with pieces of brown string. The girls pretended this was chocolate syrup.
 
Doesn’t the playdough ice cream look real?

The nice thing is that this kind of ice cream does not melt. And you can use it more than once. I’m sure we’ll be playing ice cream shop many more times this summer!
 

(click to download the ice-cream shop menu and labels)

  click for more ice-cream ideas

Making Homemade Ice Cream

One summer tradition our family has is making homemade ice cream.  Last summer we had fun making ice cream in a bag and using an ice cream maker. For our first round of ice cream making for this year, my 12yr. old decided to pull out the ice cream maker.

 
We went ahead and bought lots of different toppings to make ice cream sundaes. This is a big treat as I don’t usually have those items on hand. My 12 yr. old made vanilla ice cream using a basic no-cook recipe.

Each kid got to pick their favorite toppings. I like carmel—and chocolate. Mmmm, so good when mixed together! :) We even found some cute ice-cream bowls from The Dollar Tree.

 
It sure was hot enough that day, which made eating our homemade treat even more enjoyable.

We’re going to try a new recipe for our next batch. I’ve been looking through the ice cream recipe lists and have a few that look interesting. Do you have a favorite homemade ice-cream recipe?

Here’s a mini-booklet with the directions for making ice cream in a bag. If you’ve never tried this with your kids, you need to! Every kid I’ve seen do this activity for the first time has been in awe of the fact that they made their own ice cream with such simple ingredients!

A Cool Ice Cream Craft

Here’s a cool, summer craft for kids that goes perfectly with an ice-cream themed unit. Using colored ice-cubes, children paint a one-of-a-kind watercolor ice-cream cone.

Supplies:

Food coloring
Ice-cube tray
Tooth-picks or small craft sticks
water color paper (or heavy cardstock)
Ice-cream cone template

Directions:

1. First fill an ice-cube tray with water. Drop food-coloring in each compartment. Wrap with foil and then stick toothpicks through the foil (this hold the toothpicks up until the water is frozen.)

2. Have your child pick a cube and start “painting” on their paper.

Have them experiment with running the cube over other colors. What happens?

3. For a fun effect you can sprinkle some salt onto the wet paper. Once the paper is dry, cut out and glue onto a background piece of cardstock.

Extensions:

Have your child name the flavor of their ice-cream art. What does it taste like?

Cool, Customized Ice-Cream Art!

Project tips: We used watercolor paper and loved the results. I had to cut it down to 8.5 x 11. It is pretty thick so some printers might not like it.

What’s Your Favorite Flavor of Ice Cream?

photo by roboppy

In our area, spring forgot to come. It went from cold and rainy to full-blown summer heat! To help keep cool, we've been doing all things ice-cream! This week I'll be sharing various activities we have done plus several free printables! We need your help though. We'd love to know what flavor ice cream you like to eat.  Just pick one of the choices  (or click here if the form doesn’t work below) We'll be sharing the results later in the week.  Be sure to scroll past the form (it is leaving a big gap at the bottom) and click on the ice cream link! :)

 

Oh, and here's a sneak peek for you:

P.S. Don’t forget to enter the Imagination Station books giveaway. Ends 6/10