Story Time - Ice Cream - Library Lady

Our Ice Cream story time included:

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle

Curious George Goes to an Ice Cream Shop by Margaret Rey

Ice Cream Cows and Mitten Sheep by Jane Belk Moncure

Should I Share my Ice Cream? by Mo Willems

Other possible titles (which I don’t have in my library):

Curious George and the Ice Cream Surprise by H. A. Reay

Isaac the Ice Cream Truck by Scott Santoro

Wemberly’s Ice Cream Star by Kevin Henkes

I started planning this story time when school was still in session and I had the help of my student aides. A couple of the activities were a bit labor intensive on the prep side. I planned an activity where the students would build an ice cream cone and glue it to a piece of construction paper. Because I knew I’d be dealing with mostly PreK and K kiddos with little scissors experience, I had my aides pre-cut the parts to the ice cream cones. You can find the template for these ice cream cones on the All Kids Network.

Another activity I planned was a memory/matching game. I found this one at From ABCs to ACTs. I printed the game out on card stock and had my student aides cut them apart before they left me for the summer. I created three sets of this game so that I could have small groups or individuals work on them.

I found a coloring page which features all the foods eaten by the Very Hungry Caterpillar. Because the “littles” sometimes struggle with fine motor skills, this coloring sheet was a challenge for some, but it was a great way to review and remember the story.

I also found an alphabet dot-to-dot ice cream cone. Because the preK kiddos aren’t very strong in their ABCs, this activity required the help of myself and the volunteers. But once they saw the pattern, most were able to complete the cone and color it.

For my final activity I had to do some prep work at home the evening before. As you might guess, our closing activity for this story time was homemade ice cream. Because I knew I had kiddos with dairy allergies, I wanted a treat that all could enjoy. I followed this recipe for Yummy Coconut Ice Cream. I started the ice cream maker (I have an electric one) before the start of the story time. One of my volunteers kept an eye on it and took care of everything when the ice cream was finished. We finished the story time sitting outside under the trees enjoying our treat. I will say that not all of those used to regular ice cream enjoyed the coconut ice cream as much as those with dairy allergies did. I thought it was a great ending to a story time on a hot summer day.