Ice Cream Toddler Activities
Do your little ones love ice cream? I know mine do! I created this Ice Cream Themed Toddler Unit to satisfy that sweet tooth for learning with my toddlers! We dove into ice cream themed sensory bins, fine motor activities, arts and crafts, and lots more!
Lesson Components
This unit is made up of 5 lessons that will each work on the following activities:
- literacy/language
- sensory bin
- math and science activity
- fine motor activity
- gross motor activity
- art activity
If you want to learn more about how to get started planning activities for your little ones, download my FREE guide for everything you need to know about the skill areas we incorporate into toddler school:
Art Activities
This unit is filled with ice cream art activities to bring some summer fun into your home! To kick off the unit, you’ll give your child the ice cream coloring page. This is a great time to review the color names and what it means to color in the lines. As your child begins to color, point to the letter I and say the name of the letter. The more exposure your child has to letters, the easier it will be for your child to remember the name.
Another fun activity is this ice cream painting! All you need are watercolor paints, a paintbrush, and a small cup of water.
Allow your child to paint the ice cream independently and celebrate the masterpiece he or she created. Then, hang up the painting in your home so you can enjoy it all week!
Fine Motor Activities
Fine motor skills are so important for our little ones to master. They need lots and lots of repetitive practice manipulating small items with their tiny little hands. One way to build hand strength is using clothespins.
In this activity, your child will match uppercase and lowercase letters using clothespins. Clothespins are a great way to build fine motor skills because they provide opportunities for your child to develop important foundational skills required to use scissors, hold a pencil, and so many other important skills. Plus they’re fun!
Another exciting fine motor activity in this ice cream unit is the dot marker ice cream art project. For this activity, you can review the shape name “circle.” Your child will practice dotting inside each circle in the ice cream. This is great hand-eye coordination practice for your little one!
Sensory Bins
Sensory bins are always a favorite for us and this sprinkles play sensory bin is extra engaging. Who doesn’t love sprinkles on their ice cream!?
For this sensory experience, fill a bin with rainbow sprinkles. Add spoons, a small bowl, silicone cup liners, plastic ice cream cones, an ice cream scoop, and any other ice cream related items.
Give your child time to play and explore the bin. Encourage lots of scooping, pouring, and talking while playing! As your child plays, they will develop fine motor and language skills, all while engaging in a calming activity.
To change up this sensory bin and all a little more learning, you can add ice cream puzzles. You can bury them under the sprinkles to “hide” them for an extra challenge for your little one. Your child can search and find all of the puzzle pieces and set the completed puzzles outside the bin. For an added challenge, you can have your child use tweezers to pull the cards out of the bin. Watch as your child takes pride in a job well done!
As a busy mom, finding ways to keep sensory bins as low prep as possible is important! I love reusing the filler in a sensory bin and just changing the learning materials. In this bin, I added letter scoops and cones. Your child will place them on top of the matching pieces on the ice cream cone sensory bin workmat.
This last sensory exploration activity was a HUGE hit! For this activity, have your child help you mix together the ingredients to make cloud dough. You’ll want to include silicone cupcake liners, play (or real) ice cream cones, and an ice cream scoop to play with the dough. This a wonderful and engaging sensory experience your little one will just love. My son played ice cream shop and had me order ice cream from him over and over again during this sensory activity!
Math Activity
This 1:1 counting activity will help your little one start to recognize that we count one object once, and can match the set with a numeral. For this activity, use any type of counter you have on hand. Mini erasers are fun, and we love using pom pom balls as “sprinkles.” Guide your child in placing one counter on the number one ice cream. Remind your child that “1” represents one item while placing the counters on each card to match the number and counting out loud. You can use numbers 1-6, depending on your child’s ability level.
I hope you found some great ice cream ideas to use at home with your little ones! If you want to make teaching your toddler super simple this week, then check out my Ice Cream Toddler School Unit for 5 complete lesson plans and all the printables you need. If you want to join us in a year of learning with your little ones, then click here to see my Toddler School Curriculum.
Have a great week eating lots of ice cream and spending special time with your child exploring, learning, and playing!
This post may contain Amazon affiliate links. I earn a small commission each time someone makes a purchase through one of my affiliate links, which helps to support The Primary Brain blog. As always, I only recommend products that I love and all ideas shared are my own.
Written on August 12th, 2022 by Laurin Brainard