Summer Kid's Activity: Ice Cream Word Families Literacy Game

Summer time in my family means lots of fun outdoors and cooling off with popsicles and ice cream! This fun word families literacy kid’s activity is perfect for working on blends and words to prep for school in the fall! You can really use any color of construction paper that you want but I went with a neopolitan look for our word family activity. Don’t forget to laminate them so you can use them later!

I like incorporating this activity on especially hot days as the kids get really excited for this activity – even if it isn’t real ice cream! It’s also a fun activity to laminate and keep for center activities or interactive summer learning activities.

Ice Cream Word Family Materials:

Construction paper – white, brown, pink
Scissors
Ruler
Pen or crayons
Sharpie permanent marker

Ice Cream Word Family Instructions:

1. To create your cones, draw a 3” line on a piece of brown construction paper. I then let our little one draw the other 3” line, making a V shape.

2. Draw a line over the V creating a triangle. Cut these out.

3. To create the ice cream, take a circular object (we used a mason jar lid) and make a semi-circle on the colored construction paper.

4. Make 3 waves under the semi-circle. Cut these out.

5. On the cones, write down word family endings. Examples include:

There are plenty more you can use!

6. On the ice cream top write down beginning sounds or blends. We just used letters, but you can easily extend this activity to use blends.

7. Mix and match your ice cream layers to put together word families!

Ice Cream Word Family GAMES:

Real and Made-Up Words

1. Stack your ice cream cone with all the beginning blends. What words are made up, and what words are real?

Memory

1. Put the ice cream and cones face-down, like in memory. When you flip an ice cream and a cone over, if it makes a real word, it makes a match and the person gets 1 point. If it does not make a real word, you have to put them back down.

2. Keep a list of who-has-what word. OR after you make a real word, you can take the ice cream and the cone.