My toddler loves making ice cream. Not real ice cream. Someday maybe. Like when the weather is a little closer to 80° and not 30°. For now, we just make pretend ice cream.
Anyway, she’ll ask me to draw ice cream cones. She’ll stack blocks and pretend it’s ice cream and ask me to lick it.
After months of this, I decided it was time to do an ice cream parlor dramatic play activity.
I should’ve done this months ago… Setting it up couldn’t have been easier…
Supplies for an Ice Cream Parlor Dramatic Play Activity
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You will need:
- pastel tissue paper
- ice cream scoop
- bowls
- party paper cutter
- paper to make cones
- spoons
- red pom poms
- empty or real jars of sprinkles, chocolate chips, syrup, etc.
Looking for an organized guide of fun, easy activities to do with your toddler that also encourages their growth and development?
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How We Set Up Our Ice Cream Parlor Dramatic Play Activity
I considered making ice cream butter slime, but in the end went with a mess-free version instead.
Don’t worry, you crazy mess-lovers, you. I’ll get around to doing a messy, messy butter slime ice cream parlor activity for you soon.
First, I made a few ice cream cones. I wanted to use brown paper to be more realistic, but little miss specifically requested this polka dot scrapbook paper instead, and who was I to refuse?
I used my handy dandy cone making DIY Party Board paper cutter to make a few ice cream cone shapes. It was super easy to use with the guide and made PERFECT cones.
Next, we crumpled pastel-colored tissue paper to make our ice cream scoops.
This is an excellent fine motor activity for kids (and adults). Plus, what kid doesn’t love crumpling paper?
Look at how hard she’s working to crumple up that paper!
I let her crumple as much as she wanted, but I had to go through and give each paper ball a few extra squeezes to get it as tight as possible.
This was why I used tissue paper. Not only is it easier to crumple, but it stays in a tighter ball shape much better than thicker paper.
I didn’t bother using any glue or tape to hold the balls together, but you can wrap the balls with clear tape if you really want the balls to hold their shape.
Learning to Match Colors With Ice Cream
Is your little one learning color words? An ice cream parlor dramatic play may be just the thing to help him learn! Find more tips about teaching colors to toddlers in this post.
Here’s how I set up the ice cream dramatic play as a color matching game.
Once all the ice cream scoops were made, I tossed them all in an empty bin. I laid out an ice cream scoop, bowls, and our handmade paper ice cream cones.
She scooped matching colors of ice cream into their matching colored bowls.
Sprinkled some pretend sprinkles…
Put a little cherry on top… We used all red cherries, but you could do pom poms that are the same colors as your ice cream and bowls for even more color matching fun.
And made a mint chocolate chip ice cream cone for me! (My favorite flavor… how did she know?!)
Instead of the red cones we used, you could do cones that match the color of ice cream you have.
Talk about the colors that your child sees and matches. Constant exposure to color words and experience in matching and naming colors will help your child learn colors!
More Of The Ice Cream Parlor Dramatic Play
We had the little play kitchen from IKEA next to the ice cream bin. Ella used it mostly to display her finished ice cream bowls.
This particular bowl is a fun one. I ripped sheets of blue and pink tissue paper in half and crumpled them together to make this dual-colored bubblegum ice cream.
Our Ice Cream Flavors
It’s a little hard to tell, but we used the following colors of tissue paper to make different ice cream flavors:
- tan: chocolate ice cream
- white: vanilla ice cream
- white with black specks colored with a Sharpie: vanilla chocolate chip
- green with black specks: mint chocolate chip
- pink: strawberry ice cream
- orange: orange sherbet
- yellow: lemon sherbet
- pink and blue: bubblegum ice cream
- purple: grape ice cream
All these tissue paper colors came in this pack that I ordered on Amazon. I used one sheet to make one scoop of ice cream, and I made three scoops of each flavor.
There was plenty of tissue paper to spare, so we might have to have an ice cream party play date with some friends!
“SO MANY FLAVORS!”
Your Turn For An Ice Cream Dramatic Play Activity
This is one ice cream play activity that is mess-free, engaging, colorful, and fun!
Start crumpling that tissue paper!
Adding a Literacy Component for Early Readers
An ice cream shop wouldn’t be complete without a menu and a cash register. My toddler isn’t reading yet, but if yours is, label your ice cream flavors and toppings, and write out a menu complete with prices to enhance literacy.
Here’s a free ice cream toppings printable from Pre-K Pages.
The Crafting Chicks also has a cute menu and order form printable on the site.
Check out both of these resources for more ice cream shop fun!
Looking for an organized guide of fun, easy activities to do with your toddler that also encourages their growth and development?
I’ve created a 3-month activity planner just for busy parents like you! The plan includes 65 detailed, simple, and stress-free activities including: arts and crafts, sensory play, motor skills, and STEM–all using easy-to-find supplies.
Let me help make planning activities for your toddler easy, so you can skip the stress and get straight to the fun!
