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Ice Cream Shop

Create your own ice cream shop at home. A fun invitation to play with lots of learning opportunities along the way.

During this unprecedented time with children at home, coming up with different ways to entertain them is definitely a challenge. I try to have one activity to do each afternoon after we've completed some home learning. Some days it will be something really simple such as board games or painting. Other days it may be something more elaborate. You do not have to provide elaborate activities every day, that's not realistic. 


Ice Cream Shop

Who doesn't love ice cream pretend play? We have the Leap Frog Scoop & Learn Ice Cream Cart which is a firm favourite with my toddler and great for pretend play. As part of my 8 year olds home learning from school, she was to create a shop and a price list. She wanted to create an ice cream shop. 

We researched what kind of ice cream shop to have. The final options came down to play dough or shaving cream. We didn't have enough flour to create a play dough so we created shaving foam ice cream.


I normally have a tin of shaving foam in the house as it's a great messy play resource. I just pick up a cheap supermarket brand. I used 3 old loaf tins and sprayed in some shaving foam. I asked her what flavours she wanted to sell. She chose mint, banana and strawberry. I added some paint to the shaving foam to create the colours. 


While I did the shaving foam, she created her prices and a shop sign. I also gathered some old spice jars and filled them with some coloured rice to create sprinkles. I added some coloured craft sticks to create chocolate flakes. 

I then gathered our ice cream play items including plastic cones, scoops, bowls and an egg box to hold the cones. I added a box with water so they could wash the scoop in between flavours. I also included our play till and play money.   


Both Miss 8 and Mr 5 took it in turns to be the seller and the customer. Each chose their own flavour, sprinkles and if they wanted a chocolate flake. The seller then had to add up how much the ice cream cost and then if any change was required. 


They absolutely loved playing with this and they both really engaged with both being the seller and the customer. They even video called family to create them ice cream cones. So much fun and with added learning. I didn't let my 2 year old play as I wasn't convinced that she wouldn't eat it!       

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           
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