Since we don’t eat sweets often, my daughter really enjoys going out for ice cream! As such, ice-cream learning activities are very intriguing! We did this Ice Cream Color Matching activity when my daughter was 3. Although she already knew her colors since age 18 months, this activity was great for reinforcing the Chinese characters.
Ice Cream Color Matching is an easy, low-prep, and educational activity for toddlers and preschoolers! For younger toddlers, you can leave out the color names. However, toddlers who are beginning to recognize letters and words can learn how to read color names while matching scoops to cones! I have also included a picture of how I set up a series of color learning activities on our dining table at the end of the post!
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Important vocabulary
- 颜色 (yánsè / color)
- 冰淇淋 (bīngqílín / ice cream) or 冰糕 (bīnggāo / ice cream)
- 红, 橙, 黄, 绿, 蓝, 紫 (hóng, chéng, huáng, lǜ, lán, zǐ / red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple)
What you need for ice cream color matching:
- Colored paper
- Scissors
- Marker
- +/- large circle punch
- +/- laminator and laminating sheets
What to do:
- Cut brown paper into triangles (eg, ice cream cones)
- Cut other colored paper into large circles or use circle punch (eg, ice cream scoops)
- Write color names on the ice cream cone and scoops
- Match ice cream scoops to the ice cream cone!
Multilingual families can write the color names on the ice cream scoops in different languages for extra learning!
You may also consider laminating for repeat use. This would be a great “busy bag” activity to do in restaurants or while sitting in the car or airplane.
Please notice that the words are written very large on each ice cream scoop and cone. This allows my child can see each part of the complex Chinese character! Young kids need to see letters large when they are learning to read.
Kids Activity Station
Since we have a Montessori-inspired home, I try to create a prepared environment for Chinese learning. Here is an example of different color-matching activities set up on our dining table. In addition to the Ice Cream Scoop Matching activity, the additional two options were:
If you try this Ice Cream Color Matching activity, please let us know! Leave a comment and don’t forget to tag @CHALKAcademy on Instagram and Facebook! We love to see how other families do educational activities!
Recommended educational activities
If your child likes ice cream, definitely check out our Ice Cream Scoop Counting activity with dot stickers! It’s a fun way to learn numeracy with ice cream scoops!
Check out all of our low-prep, educational, hands-on color learning activities in this link!
Happy learning, friends!
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