It’s National Ice Cream Day and we’re thinking about making our favorite frozen treat, ice cream in a bag. No special equipment is required. With a couple of plastic zipper bags and 5 ingredients likely already in your kitchen, kids can shake milk into ice cream in just 5 minutes.
A free picture recipe can be downloaded by visiting our free resources page
As with many of the cooking activities we love, there are lots of natural opportunities for communication and modeling before, during and after cooking.
Before cooking we read the recipe and check the kitchen to see if we have the ingredients. If any are missing, we write shopping lists of ingredients we need. We can take a community field trip to the grocery store where there are numerous opportunities for authentic communication.
During cooking, model language from the SMoRRES® at Home download for making ice cream (also available on the free resources page). In this activity we get, put (in), open, close, shake, eat, and clean. The ice gets really cold (perhaps chilly, freezing, or icy) when we put salt in it!
After cooking, have him or her dictate or write a story about the experience – make sure to take plenty of pictures of your child making ice cream to help them think of what to say. Save this in a journal to later retell the story to friends and family.
We hope this activity helps keep you and your family cool during the long, hot summer months!