Let’s face it, while summer is a perfect time for ice cream, many of us would love it all year long! While we probably shouldn’t eat ice cream every day, we have had a blast turning that interest into fun learning activities. Work on fine motor skills, patterning, and counting with this adorable Build an Ice Cream Cone activity!
*Pair with our Kindergarten Printables Bundle for Summer!
Build an Ice Cream Cone Activity
This activity is perfect for bringing more play into the classroom. It is so versatile and engaging as a center activity or use it to turn your classroom into a fun ice cream shop! Let’s get started with some simple supplies!
Supplies Needed:
- Felt in assorted colors (Craft foam works great too!)
- Pom poms (different colors and sizes) as cherries/sprinkles
- Plastic tweezers
How to Prep
To prep for this activity, I cut ice cream cones out of light brown felt. I cut 2 different shapes for the students to choose. I love anytime that I can offer my kids choice!
Next, I cut the ice cream scoop shapes out of an assortment of colors. Today we used white for vanilla, green for mint, and pink for strawberry.
I added all of the supplies to a plastic tray to keep things organized. Then I gave each student a pair of tweezers and they were all set to start building their ice cream cones!
How to Play
There are a so many options for how to build and play with our ice cream cones!
This activity can simply be “an invitation to play,” meaning I allow the kids to complete it without adult intervention. It is amazing how much constructive learning still happens when the students use the tweezers to add the pom poms (fine motor skills) and build the ice cream cone (visual perception for where and how to put the ice cream together)!
With adult intervention, you could ask the students to complete a pattern with the scoops. For example, start by adding a “strawberry” and “vanilla” scoop of ice cream on a cone. Ask the kids to build their own ice cream cones with the same pattern.
This could be done in a playful manner too: “I want to order a strawberry and vanilla ice cream cone please.” Bringing the element of a pretend ice cream shop in will add an extra level of fun to the activity!
Practice counting skills by “ordering” 3 scoops of ice cream with 2 cherries and the students get to count out the scoops and pom pom cherries. Take it further and order another ice cream cone but this time with one more scoop. Here you are introducing the concept of addition.
And, “Oh, no! Look, one of my scoops melted. How many do I have left?” This is a fun and simple way to introduce the concept of subtraction.
The learning opportunities are endless. Your students will strengthen important skills and have so much fun while enjoying this Build an Ice Cream Cone activity!
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