The end of the school year is fast approaching. This means it’s time for final assessments, finishing up portfolios, and planning the end of year slideshow. It also means integrating summer-related ideas into the school day! With warmer weather upon us, some summer math with “ice cream” was called for.
Related: Number Activities for Preschoolers
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Fun and Engaging “Ice Cream” Summer Math
Easy to Set Up
This was a super simple activity to put together! I cut twenty small triangles out of brown construction paper, then wrote the numbers 1 to 20 on them. I ran them through the laminator so they’d last for a while, then put them into a bowl. The kiddos and I rummaged around the pompom bin and picked a variety of fun colors, and those pompoms went into a tray. Then a few of our small tongs were added to the mix. Everything’s more fun with tongs. Just ask the preschoolers.
How the Children Used the Summer Math Invitation
Once everything was ready, the kiddos were ready to jump into some fun ice cream math! One of my girls decided she wanted to do ice cream cones one through ten. She grabbed all the numbers and lined them up in order, then set to work making her ice cream orders. She tried to see if she could pick up all the pompoms she needed at one time. That worked well until she got to number eight. Then she had to settle for adding the pompoms a few at a time. Once she was done, she asked me to “make sure to take a picture for my dad” before she cleaned up. Can you tell she was proud of her work?!
Another one of my ladies wanted to tackle numbers 11 to 20. I helped her put those numbers in order, talking about how the numbers are formed and such. Then she jumped into adding the pompom “ice cream scoops” to each of those cones! I just loved watching her look of concentration.
Other Ways to Use the “Ice Cream” Math
From there, a few of my boys came over to check things out. They decided to sort the pompoms by color first. Then they chose random numbers, one at a time. They used the tongs and their fingers to make “super tall” ice cream cones with the pompoms. From there, it was making patterned ice cream cones. They seemed to find that last part hysterical. I was definitely entertained, too!
Learning with Summer Math
As I mentioned earlier, this was a very simple activity to put together. As I’m fond of mentioning, sometimes the simple activities can yield the most learning. Here are some of the early math concepts (and more!) our pompom ice cream math touched on:
- One-to-one correspondence
- Counting
- Numeral recognition
- Ordering numerals
- Patterns
- Fine motor skills
Preschool Ice Cream Theme Lesson Plans
Save time and get right to the playful learning with our printable lesson plan sets. Each set includes over 30 playful learning activities related to the theme, and we’ve provided different versions for preschool teachers and home preschool families and so all activities are geared directly toward your needs.
Get your plans here > > > Preschool Teachers | Home Preschool | Teachers Pay Teachers
Be sure to check out more activities for a preschool ice cream theme below! The #TeachECE crew always has meaningful ideas to share!
Ice Cream Math Playdate from The Educators’ Spin On It
The Great Ice Cream Cone Race from Capri + 3
Ice Cream Cone Patterns Printable from Life Over Cs
This is such a cute idea! This is a really good way to keep your little one interested in learning math. It’s really important that you teach them in creative ways like this at an early age so that they remain engaged! Awesome post! Thanks so much for sharing!
Thanks! 🙂
This is such a great idea, I always run out of math ideas. Thankyou!
Glad you like it, Dianna! Thanks. 🙂
Thank you for the idea, I liked it as my theme for next week is icecream & was thinking of where to begin from so your ideas helped alot😊
So happy to be of help! 🙂