Looking for a sweet way to keep your students motivated and engaged as summer quickly approaches? I love to shake up our normal daily classroom routine with a themed Station Day! One of our favorites for the end of the year in 1st grade is Ice Cream Day! In this post, I’ll share tons of ice cream center activities, Ice Cream writing pages, a taste test graphing activity, a craft, and more. Perfect for reviewing skills or as a class reward! Get some ideas to plan your own Ice Cream Day!
During the last month of the school year, we love learning all about ice cream! We read ice cream books, learn about how ice cream is made, create an ice cream craft, and celebrate with an end of the year Ice Cream Station Day to celebrate our learning!
You can find all of the ice cream stations and activities in this post here:
Want to read about more station days in 1st grade? Check out:
Ice Cream Day Learning (FREEBIES!)
We spend the first day of our unit creating a KWL chart. I have the students brainstorm in groups or with a partner: What do we already KNOW about ice cream? What do we WONDER or WANT to learn about ice cream? I either record their responses or they write themselves on post-its to stick on the chart!
We fill in the chart together and I keep it posted in our classroom throughout the unit. As we read and learn more about ice cream, we fill in the L (or LEARN) part of the chart!
You can grab this free KWL Ice Cream Anchor Chart and non fiction writing pages for FREE here!
Ice Cream Taste Test
To incorporate math into our unit, we do an Ice Cream taste test graphing activity! I buy a big gallon of Neapolitan ice cream (with chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry.) I give each student a small cup with a little bit of each flavor. They try each one and choose a favorite. Then we make a class graph with our results!
Ice Cream Day Station Activities
At the end of our Ice Cream unit, to celebrate all of our new learning, we have Ice Cream Day! On Ice Cream Day the students work in teams to complete ice cream station activities, we do a craft and an ice cream writing activity!
Stock Up the Ice Cream Truck Slide
Before we begin our stations, I display this slide on the Smart Board. I tell the students that Ice Cream Man Stan needs our help! We must complete all of the Ice cream stations to help him get the ice cream truck ready for summer!
Ice Cream Day Sticker Sheet
I give each student an Ice Cream sticker so that they can track which activities they have visited. As they complete a station activity, they can add a sticker to their chart! The kids absolutely LOVE these charts. They get so excited to add the stickers and I love that they can take them home and share with their families about all the activities we did. I let the students complete the activities in any order they choose. The sticker chart helps them to keep track of which activities they still need to complete.
Ice Cream Day Stations
Finally, we begin our stations! The best part is that our ice cream centers last almost all day long. I like to have my students rotate through each activity. We spend about 15 minutes at each station.
I created visual directions for all of the ice cream station activities so students are able to complete them independently. These stations incorporate math, literacy, science, and writing!
I like to have students keep all of their work in a folder. That way, if they don’t finish an activity, I can give some extra time the next week for them to finish anything up!
Ice Cream Day Station 1: Ice Cream ABC Order
Students work with their team to put the ice cream words in ABC order!
Ice Cream Day Station 2: Design an Ice Cream Sundae
Students use their creativity to design and draw their own ice cream sundae. They choose flavors and toppings and write a recipe for what they create!
Ice Cream Day Station 3: Ice Cream Truck Race Math Game
This math game is perfect for practicing addition and subtraction facts!
Ice Cream Day Station 4: Ice Cream 5 Senses
Students use their 5 senses to describe ice cream and make a mini flip book. I keep an example of an ice cream flip book at the station to help students create these independently.
Ice Cream Day Station 5: Ice Cream Roll and Cover
This is another math game that students can play. They Roll 2 dice and add or subtract the numbers. Cover one ice cream cone with the sum or difference. The first player to cover all of their ice cream cones wins!
Ice Cream Day Station 6: Ice Cream Word Search
Students work together to use highlighters to find all of the ice cream words in the word search.
Ice Cream Day Station 7: Popsicle Place Value
Students use these fun math mats to practice their place value skills. For this activity, choose a number card, fill out the Place Value mat using a dry erase marker.
Ice Cream Day Station 8: Scooping Up Synonyms
Students will review synonyms by matching up the ice cream scoop and cone with the related words. They will then record their matches on the recording sheet.
Ice Cream Writing
We also complete an ice cream writing activity. Students write their opinion about the best ice cream flavor. They state reasons and examples to support their opinions. We have usually just completed our opinion writing unit so it works perfectly as a review!
I also included How To Writing and Nonfiction Writing activities so you can choose what would work best for your students!
Ice Cream Craft
Finally, we create an ice cream craft to go with our writing. I wanted to share 2 different ice cream craft ideas!
The first is a simple template:
The second Ice Cream Craft is a little messier, but so much fun!
Ice Cream Shaving Cream Craft
To create this craft,
- Have each student cut out an ice cream cone from the template and glue it to the bottom of a colored piece of paper.
2. Show students how to draw an ice cream shape above their cone with a pencil.
3. Create an “ice cream” mixture in a bowl by mixing glue and shaving cream
4. Students can use plastic spoons, popsicle sticks, or their fingers to fill in the ice cream shape with the mixture.
5. Give students some sprinkles to put on their ice cream. Students can also add a paper cherry! I like using my circle punch to make a lot of red circles at once.
Leave these out to dry overnight!
If you want to grab any of these activities and ice cream stations, you can find them in my Ice Cream Day Resource here:
I hope this gave you some ideas for planning an Ice Cream Day in 1st Grade!
One Response
Cheerful and inviting to spark their interest!