Preschool & Kindergarten Lesson Plans: Letter I is for Ice Cream

July is National Ice Cream month but anytime is a fun time for ice cream theme lesson plans. Sure letter I is for igloo an insects but everybody loves ice cream. Ice cream lesson plans lend themselves to concepts like shapes and colors. There's plenty of science, math and of course tasting to go around.

I read, you read, we all read about ice cream.

Great lesson plans begin with great children's books. Here are seven excellent children's books celebrating ice cream.

• Ice Cream Cones for Sale! by Elaine Greenstein
• Ice Cream: The Full Scoop by Gail Gibbons
• The Ice Cream Cone Coot and Other Rare Birds by Arnold Lobel
• Ice Cream King by Steve Metzer
• The Sundae Scoop (a Math Start 2 book) by Stuart J. Murphy
• Curious George Goes to an Ice Cream Shop by Margaret Rey
• From Cow to Ice Cream by Bertram T. Knight

I write, you write, let's all write about ice cream.

You can find a great free ice cream cone printable from abcteach.com that's perfect for making a shape book about ice cream. Kids could label colors, flavors or create their own ice cream story in a shape book with help.

You can also find a great ice cream cone dot-to-dot coloring page at abcteach.com to help little one practice their fine motor skills.

For added flavor, abcteach.com has ice cream themed writing prompt page for practicing letters, names or new words.

For older students, find an ice cream word search at abcteach.com as well.

I count, you count, let's all enjoy ice cream math.

Chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, cookie dough and more, young kids love to name their favorites. What a great way to build counting and graph skills than with a favorite ice cream survey.

At abcteach.com you can find a cute ice cream survey sheet. Each child can do their own survey and then the results can be combined for a big math graph for the classroom.

Make letter, number and color matching games with these cute coloring pages from abcteach.com.

Ice cream art is smart.

Give each child cut outs, or scissors and paper to cut their own, cones and scoops of ice cream. What can we create from this ice cream cone art? Turn it upside down and see a clown.

It's center time!

Give centers a fresh new feel by adding ice cream scoops to the play dough table or the sand box.

Add clean ice cream cartons to the kitchen area. Add some aprons for dress up and a cash register to turn the kitchen into an ice cream parlor.

Try the Ice Cream Scoop by Fisher Price, a fun matching game.