Ice Cream Activities for Speech Therapy

Are you looking for ice cream activities for speech therapy? I’ve put together a set of easy activities that are perfect for an ice cream theme! Amazon affiliate links are included throughout this post.

I love doing an ice cream theme in Summer! It pairs perfectly with the hot days in South GA, but it is also a fun way to work on speech and language goals through literacy, dramatic play, and making homemade ice cream!

Ice Cream Books for Speech Therapy

What’s a good them without books?!?! Check out this blog post HERE on my favorite ice cream books for speech therapy!

Ice Cream Dramatic Play

I LOVE incorporating dramatic play into speech therapy. One of the questions I get asked the most during my seminars on dramatic play is if I use it with older (upper elementary) students, and my answer is HECK YEAH! My fourth and fifth graders LOVE dramatic play, and many of my colleagues use my dramatic play sets with their middle school students as well! Kids have such limited opportunities for creative free play these days, especially in school. SLPs have a unique opportunity to target pretty much every goal imaginable with dramatic play, and the kids don’t even know they’re working! One of my favorite dramatic play centers to use each year is an ice cream stand. Ice cream works great because you can use pretend ice cream, pom pom balls for ice cream, or REAL ice cream! You can find the Dramatic Play Ice Cream Stand set HERE. It includes all kinds of printables you can use for an instant ice cream shoppe or stand. If you do have a budget for new toysw, some of my favorite ice cream toy accessories can be found HERE and HERE. And don’t forget HERE, and HERE!

Just to be clear though, you don’t have to have a lot of fancy toys to incorporate dramatic or pretend play into your classroom! One of the best therapy sessions I ever had was a quick and easy ice cream shoppe we made with pom pom balls and plastic bowls from another set of toys. We paired them with plastic spoons from the cafeteria and had an instant (and free) ice cream shoppe! You can talk about the different colors and what flavors they may be, and “sprinkle” the ice cream with the smallest pom poms!

Non-Fiction Ice Cream Activities and Homemade Ice Cream

I love using books to teach about my themes. You can target comprehension, sequencing, fiction vs. nonfiction, opinion vs fact, comparing and contrasting, describing, vocabulary, and more!

I made an exclusive freebie that goes great with an ice cream theme as well as the nonfiction book Ice Cream the Full Scoop, by Gail Gibbons! It also includes step by step directions and a recipe for making homemade ice cream with plastic baggies…an awesome activity for your students! Readers on my email list have access to a Free Resource Library with tons of freebies you can find anywhere else! Not on the list? Click HERE to hop on so you can snag this weather comprehension freebie and other great freebies!

Ice Cream Following Directions

If you have students working on spatial and basic concepts, you may want to check out this Boom Card Following Directions activity. It is great for homework or teletherapy as well! You can find it HERE.

Articulation Activities

Did you know that you can carry over themes into speech articulation too? These Feed Me Boom Cards are so fun…..and perfect for practicing or progress monitoring initial sounds in words! You can find the girl version HERE and the boy version HERE.

You may have also seen these new pop-its fidgets that have recently taken the kid-world by storm. While some people don’t like them because they’re distractions in the classroom, you CAN use them for articulation trials, keeping data, and so much more! For that reason, I’ve ordered a few. You can find the ice cream ones shown below HERE and HERE.

Ice Cream Crafts

Crafts are so fun and engaging, but they still need to be quick, low-prep, and most importantly, functional! These adorable hand-print ice cream cones check all the boxes! Just get white and brown construction paper and trace your student’s hand for the ice cream top. Color it (you can also use colored construction paper to cut down on a step), and glue it on top of a brown triangle. I use Kwiksticks for pretty much all crafts now. They’re super easy, fast, and dry in under 30 seconds. You can find them HERE.

Ice Cream Games

If I have a chance to incorporate a themed game, I do on occasion. I like games that are quick to set up and quick to play. We use them as reinforcement during or at the end of sessions. This Ice Cream Tower game was inexpensive on Amazon and has been a big hit with my students!