Ice Cream Color Matching – Fun Way To Learn Color Names!
Since kids love ice cream, ice-cream activities are a super fun way to learn through play! My toddler did this Ice Cream Color Matching activity to boost her bilingual language development in English and Mandarin Chinese.
Ice Cream Color Matching is an easy, low-prep, and educational activity for young children. For younger toddlers, you can leave out the color names and focus on observation. When your child is starting to recognize letters and words, they can learn how to read color names while matching scoops to cones!
In case it helps, take a peek at the picture at the end of the post where I show an inviting color learning activity set up on our dining table.
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Ice cream color names in English and Chinese
If you’re learning Mandarin Chinese with your children like me, here are important words to review in Chinese, Pinyin, and English!
- 颜色 / 顏色 (yánsè / color)
- 红 / 紅 (hóng / red)
- 橙 (chéng / orange)
- 黄 / 黃 (huáng / yellow)
- 绿 / 綠 (lǜ / green)
- 蓝 (lán / blue)
- 紫 (zǐ / purple)
- 冰淇淋 (bīngqílín / ice cream) or 冰糕 (bīnggāo / ice cream)
What you need for ice cream color matching activity
- Colored paper
- Scissors
- Marker
- Optional: large circle punch, laminator and laminating sheets
How to set up ice cream color matching activity
- 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.
Notice that the words are written very large on each ice cream scoop and cone. Since the details of Chinese character strokes can be hard to see, writing extra big allows my child can see the word more clearly.
In all languages, children benefit from larger letters when they are learning to read.
Color learning station for kids
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:
- Clothespin Color Matching
- Pom Pom Color Matching
If you try this Ice Cream Color Matching activity, please let us know in the comment section! We love to see how other families do educational activities!
