Set up a fun ice cream shop pretend play activity that will keep your young ones busy, and learning, for a while!
Today we are joining a series by Crafty Kids at Home called A-Z of Pretend Play! We chose the letter I, and played Ice Cream Shop!
I had fun putting it together! I started with the sign. Pink poster board with writing, some bunting and cupcake liners around:
Then I got the empty ice cream tubs I always save out. These were filled with cotton wool balls and different coloured pompoms. The pompoms’ colours corresponded with the different flavours:
I kept it quite simple, obviously one could add popsicle sticks and sundaes to the menu too.
My 2.5-year-old enjoyed the scooping part best.
Whereas my 5-year-old liked making her own combinations.
This activity is great for communication skills too. Placing an “order” requires asking for exactly what you want and the other person needs to listen to get the order right. One could give a few instructions too to work on memory. Colour recognition, hand-eye coordination, and fine motor skills are both skills developing in a playful manner.
Add a till with money, and you have a math station too!
Perfect pretend play activity with plenty of learning opportunities!
You might like to see these pretend activities too:
Shop Pretend Play Activity
Dress up Play
Cupcake Shop
Gaurav says
Amazing crafts. Thanks for sharing.
Amanda @artsy_momma says
Super love this idea! Definitely doing with Little Sister 🙂
Nicola says
I love this and I can’t wait to have a go with my own kids. My eldest loves making posters so I will enlist that job to him. The scooping part will be great for my preschooler to work on her fine motor skills and my 5 year old son will definitely want to add in his till to add a maths element as well. Thanks so much for taking part in our A-Z of Pretend Play.