Ice Cream Themed Learning Activities

It’s summer in the Northern Hemisphere, and one of the key components of summer for me is ice cream. Use ice cream as a theme in the classroom or at home to make summer learning more fun.

Modern Preschool has a set of ice cream alphabet letters is upper and lower case and shares a cute idea for writing practice in sprinkles. You can also do ice cream number matching with the printables from Fun with Mama.

This Reading Mama has an ice cream themed project for sorting letter sounds, and Playdough to Plato has an ice cream ten frame and number matching activity. The Measured Mom has another printable ice cream counting activity for helping kids count from one to ten.

The Littles and Me has a super cute free ice cream printable packet that includes ideas for activities, a printable die for ice cream hopscotch, a recipe for ice cream dough and more.

Speaking of ice cream dough, check out this post from Lemon Lime Adventures where they tested several different kinds of ice cream dough made with conditioner, icing and other substances. The post explains the science behind them and how the kids liked them so you can choose the best for your family or do your own experiments.

Of course you’re going to want to make ice cream in a bag, which you can do with this recipe from I Can Teach My Child, or turn it into a science experiment with the printable worksheet from 123 Homeschool 4 Me. You can also test your kids with an ice cream taste test like this one from No Time for Flash Cards.

And if you want some ice cream crafts, you can decorate your own ice cream cones with this cut and paste activity from krokotak, make puffy paint and paint ice cream pictures from Crafty Morning, or do a printmaking project like this one from Artful Parent.

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Playdough Learning Activities

As I write this, back to school time is right around the corner, and if you have kids going to school for the first time or who might need a refresher on what school is like, books can be a big help in calming fears and letting them know what to expect.

School Days by Fabiola Sepulvelda is a wordless picture book full of photographs of various things that happen during the school day, such as leaving home, getting off the bus, greeting your teacher, raising your hand to talk, circle time, reading, quiet work, lunch, recess, art and music, and greeting your parent at the end of the day.

This is a nice book to prompt conversations about the way things might look and things that might happen at school, and could also be used in the classroom to talk about routines and what happens each day. It’s meant to be for kids who don’t yet know how to read, but could be used with older kids as well.

Ready for School by Dona Herweck Rice and illustrated by Amanda Morrow follows a little girl through a day getting ready for school and thinking about all the things that happen at school. It covers things like calendar time, mat time, being read to, math (they’re learning to count to five), recess and art. She’s so excited to go she wakes her mom up and it’s still nighttime.

This one is good for kids who like reminders of how the routine goes (both getting ready for school and being there) and those who might be apprehensive about what’s going to happen or if it will be fun.

The same author has a series of books that are meant to be for ESL learners but would work for others as well. Welcome to School has photos and single words or short phrases for things you do to get ready for school, different ways you might travel there, greetings, morning meeting activities. people you might see at school (like teacher, student, custodian), places and objects you’ll find around school, things at recess and school rules (like line up and raise hand).

Your School Day uses longer phrases (“riding in car” instead of just “car,” for example) and older children in the photos. The routine is also for older kids and uses bigger words like announcements and equipment. It also shows photos of different subjects kids might study, different kinds of learning groups and more people and places you’ll find in school.

A Day at School is kind of in between these two, with older elementary students going through many of the same things. This one doesn’t mention morning meetings but also doesn’t use the level of vocabulary of the book for older kids. Either this one of Welcome to School would be fine to use with young kids who already speak English but might like to see all the things and people they’ll see at school.

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