There are lots of printable maths resources on Activity Village that help make maths more fun - just like the ice cream counting printable Shelly tries out with her kids in this guest post...
Ice Cream Maths
By Shelly
I recently spotted the Ice Cream Counting Printable on the site and immediately thought it would be perfect for some maths practice. The set comes with 12 cones – the first 10 are numbered from 1 to 10 and then there are 2 empty cones (very useful for adding your own numbers) and 57 scoops of ice cream in blue, yellow and pink.
I think the original idea of the printable was for the kids to use it as a counting activity – place the number of correct scopes on each cone. So for the cone with number three on the kids need to add three scopes of ice cream.
Ice cream counting printable used for simple counting
I also think you could turn it into a very nice counting poster. If you line up the cones from 1 to 10 and then add the scoops, the kids will see how each ice cream gets bigger as the number increases.
You could also write the number words on some of the scoops and then the kids need to match the correct word scoop to the correct number cone.
Matching the correct word to the correct number
If your kids are learning how to spell the number words, how about getting them to write out the words on the scoops themselves?
You could also combine the number words and counting idea into one. Write the number words out on some scoops and then also draw out dots, lines or tally marks that represent each number. This way the kids can add the correct number word and the correct number of dots to each cone.
Ice cream number matching activity
But the reason I printed our copy was for number bonds. You could write out all the sums on the different scoops and then the kids match the scoops to the cone. So for cone number 4 they would need to add the scoops with 3+1, 4+0 and 2+2.
Matching sums to the correct cone
With my son we used it as number bond revision activity, so he wrote out all the sums for each cone himself and then added them to the different cones. It worked really well for this.
Writing out sums for each one
If you want to extend it to number bonds for numbers great than 10, you could just write the numbers on the empty cones or you could cut out a small circle, write your number on the circle and then glue it onto one of the existing cones like this:
Changing the number on the cones
We have also been working on some times tables lately so I also thought the cones could be used for skip counting practice. The kids can write the different numbers on the scoops and then add them to the cones.
Skip counting with ice cream cones
Skip counting in 3s and 5s
Because we were in an ice cream maths craze we also thought of making Odd and Even cones. We stated off with Cone 1 for Odd numbers and Cone 2 for even numbers and then wrote out all the other odd and even numbers on the scoops and added them to the correct cones.
Odds and evens number sorting
I love these ice creams as I think you can take one printable and use it over and over again.
Tip: If you are planning on using them over and over it is better to print it out on card!
This is a guest post from Shelly. Shelly is a home educating parent of two children aged 6 and 9. She blogs at ofamily learning together where she shares ideas on the different learning activities that they do including lots of hand-on Maths, arts and crafts and anything else that is part of their home educating lifestyle.
You can find more guest posts by Shelly, and a list of all our guest posts, here.
