The kids had so much fun at last year's Ice Cream Shop Day that they had ALL kinds of ideas for this summer's Ice Cream Day. I had the older kids help me plan out our day and get things ready the day beforehand, but I still had some surprises for them to make the day extra fun.
We (attempted) to make ice cream cone shaped pancakes. They didn't turn out as I had hoped, but the kids thought they were "the best ice cream pancakes ever!"
Just like last year, we set up the patio as an ice cream shop. The kids spent most of their morning (a good 2 hours) scooping play dough ice cream, "buying" the ice cream from each other, and making up ice cream concoctions even ice cream lovers would be frightened of!
We used plastic ice cream cones (from numerous play food sets) and Lego ice cream cones for the kids to put the play dough ice cream in. The nice thing about using these plastic ice cream cones is that they can go through the dishwasher, making clean up fairly easy. The pom poms served as "ice cream" toppings. We had plenty of ice cream scoops to go around (I stocked up after last year's Ice Cream Day).
The homemade "ice cream" play dough. We had "vanilla," "strawberry," "chocolate," "blue raspberry," and a "mint chocolate chip." The kids didn't attempt to try out the play dough, although it was all completely edible (it's flour, salt, water, and food coloring). The only one that wasn't safe was the "mint chocolate chip," as I added 2 scoops of dirty to give it a chocolate chip look. Of course, that was the only one that the kids really, really wanted to try out!
Showing off her ice cream shirt.
The kids colored ice cream cut outs (drew them, the older kids cut them out, and all of the kids colored them with markers).
The biggest treat and surprise of the day: ice cream sundaes with TONS of topping options!
How do I know this day was another success? Lots of smiles and I was told "you're the best Ashlen I have in my life!" numerous times.