Support children's maths learning and development by making ice-creams. Maths ice-cream is a great activity to engage children in counting, number recognition, colour recognition and shape identification. The idea of this maths ice-cream activity is for children to count the number of sprinkles on the ice-cream and match it to the number written on the ice-cream cone.
I have carried out this activity with preschool and reception aged children and they both engaged with it well. I began this activity by putting out all of the ice-cream cones in order and counting with the children from 1 to 10 pointing at the cones as we counted them. I mixed up the ice-cream and challenged the children to count the number of sprinkles on each ice-cream and match it to the correct cone.
I asked the children which colour the ice-creams are and which flavour they think it could be, encouraging discussion around their favourite flavour of ice-cream as well as supporting colour recognition. The children counted the sprinkles out loud and to extend I also asked them to name the colours of each sprinkle. We explored the shape of the ice-cream cone and the sprinkles being circles, supporting identification of shapes. The children successfully matched the correct ice-cream to the cone and enjoyed counting the different coloured sprinkles.
Once the children had successfully counted and matched the ice-creams I left the resources out for the children to play with and pretend to sell ice-creams. This unplanned imaginative play encouraged lots of number language and counting, which was a perfect extension to the planned activity.
To make your own maths ice-creams you will need:
- Brown paper for the ice-cream cones.
- Coloured paper for the ice-creams.
- Coloured pens to write the numbers on the cones and draw the sprinkles on to the ice-creams.
I hope you enjoy this fun ice-cream maths activity!
Save this idea for later on my Pinterest
Receive updates on my next blog posts on Instagram
Comments
Post a Comment