Mint Choc-chip Ice Cream Play

Does this look real or what?

After seeing some Ice-cream Dough Pinspiration Here I started craving for my favorite flavored ice cream; Mint Choc Chip. 

I thought it would be pretty cool to make this play Ice cream dough, that looks so realistic your kids might try to taste it in a minty green mixtures with choc chips, looking through my play supplies I also found a large tub of ground coffee so I decided to make a coffee scented ice-cream dough as well.

Working with corn flour can be difficult and messy (just a warning) what you need is a bowl with 1 1/2 cup corn flour, then you add 3/4 cup of cheap Hair conditioner your colour and your extract. Here I used a green food dye and a peppermint essence. For the coffee flavour I simply added ground coffee with the conditioner. Depending on the shop your at you may find some suitable conditioner that smells like.... Berries for instance if you were doing a berry ice cream dough. Then Mix; Its a good idea to get some little hands in there mixings it up for a bit of extra sensory experience. It smells so good!

As stated by the creator Play, create, explore, the secret to make it look real is to scoop it roughly and break it off, if you roll it in a ball and use it like a play dough it goes Super smooth and silky. It looks really cool and feels soft but not like real ice cream. See the original ice cream dough post by play -create -explore here: http://www.playcreateexplore.org/2013/01/ice-cream-dough-new-play-recipe.html

For our Choc-Chips in the Mint flavor I added some black and brown beads. 

Then a selection of pom-poms, straws, cardboard cut into triangle wafers for decorating our ice creams.

Using scoops and ice cream bowls Dimples played with the dough and put together some funky looking Ice creams. They look so cool & they smelt really yummy. He put one into the fridge and when Adventures Dad came home from work he looked very puzzled as he opened the fridge and Dimples laughed Hysterically "I tricked you!"

I have tried this several times and failed, but we wont go there! Many bottles of conditioner have been sacrificed. The key to getting the mixture right is don't be like me, don't try and "wing it" you need to go off the recipe and have the cornflour in the bowl first. No water & measure your conditioner, if you have too much liquid it goes more like a goop than a dough. 

So now you have a super yummy scented Ice cream dough that looks very realistic, pop it in the fridge while you set up your pretend ice cream parlour, just long enough to chill it. Once the children are ready to play you will be providing them with an awesome sensory play experience; smells good, visually interesting, feels nice and cold. the only thing they cant do with this stuff is eat it.

Learning Concepts:
Measurement
Mixing
Creativity
Sensory exploration
Imagination
Pretend Play
Imitating Real Life

Ideas for Exploration:
Make your own wafers and ice cream cones from cardboard
Experiment with different flavors; chocolate (cocoa), berry (red color & berry conditioner)
Try our Ice-Cream Sprinkles Dough
You could make real ice cream, search pinterest or google for ice-cream in a bag
and Of course after all that ice cream play you could go ice cream taste testing at a real ice cream parlor.

Happy Adventures

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Ice cream Dough and Sprinkles

Today's outdoor activity was a messy, sensory play all rolled into one fun dramatic pretend play session. We took it outside to enjoy the fresh air and the lovely smell of spring flowers while saving on the mess factor.  I made what I will call Ice cream dough from a large cheap bottle of baby powder and 1/2cup of baby oil, coincidental both were lavender scented. Our ice cream dough smelt wonderful and felt silky soft.

Delicious Looking, sweet Smelling, Silk soft to play with and oh so fun.



I mixed it up in a large tub and served it to Dimples outside with some small different shape bowls, a measuring cup, an ice cream scoop, some plastic spoons, some sprinkles and some Pom poms.

First I made him a bowl of Ice cream, a few moulded scoops with a cherry on top and gave him the spoon. He grabbed the spoon and hooked in (instantly falling into his dramatic pretend play mode) 'yum yum delishhh-us!' he said. It was a funny moment because I had never heard him say this in context before.

 

He took the role as ice cream maker very seriously and set to work making me a bowl of ice cream, 'try it' he insisted, watching me when a huge dimply grin. 

The game went on and on, Dimples enjoyed scooping it all up and patting it into bowls and the measuring cup, as you would with sand castles then carefully putting them upside down to get them out. I think he mostly enjoyed smashing the balls of ice cream I made up and of course generously sprinkling on the 100's & 1000's.

 

The ice cream dough looked so appealing with its rainbow sprinkles and it smelt so fresh. I am glad we took it outside though, it was definitely an outside activity. There was white powder and crumbs every where, Dimples tends to throw his hands up when they are covered on something and flick them over head like a chopper so that stuff flies off in every direction.

Tap and flatten the bowl full of Ice cream face down.



Dimples had an awesome time building, forming and patting the dough into ice cream and mastering how to scoop it packed in to the bowl or scoop and then slowly sliding it out. Through experimenting he learnt how to perfectly build a dome using a bowl and had lots of hands on play with scooping, pouring, smashing, patting, measuring, using the spoon, measuring cup, sprinkles and bowls to pretend make ice cream. He also learnt that the dough was very fragile and cracked easily.

slowly does it







Big smiles. Successful!





Happy Adventures :)