Ice Cream Themed Activities for Summer Speech Therapy

Summer speech therapy means feeling the pull between wanting to keep sessions meaningful and fun, yet not wanting to spend hours planning a Pinterest-perfect thematic unit. Just because it's summer doesn't give speech-language pathologists endless time to create themed lesson plans, so we need activities that catch attention and facilitate engagement without a lot of extra effort.

That’s where an ice cream theme comes in. It’s simple, fun, and easy to adapt for both younger students and older children, making it one of those go-to themed activities you can use again and again without overthinking. Even better, you can target a wide range of speech and language goals with little to no prep, whether you’re using digital tools, a teletherapy platform, or quick print-and-go activities.

Why use an ice cream theme in summer speech therapy?

Not to state the obvious, but kids love ice cream. And with high interest comes high engagement. Students are more likely to have instant buy-in, rather than hold out to see if an activity is fun enough to capture their interest.

Ice cream is a topic that students of all ages are familiar with, so it's easy to adapt across ages and goals. There are also tons of vocabulary (flavors, toppings, situations, preferences) built in, so you don't have to stretch your imagination to come up with ways to use the theme.

Let's explore some ways to make an ice cream theme work for your caseload!

Ice Cream Themed Activities for Speech Therapy

I scream, you scream, we all scream for... easy, no-prep activities that target speech and language goals with this playful summer theme!

BOOM CARD DECKS

These Boom activities provide interactive, no-print options that students can use on a computer, tablet, or other device during in-person or teletherapy speech sessions.

Create a Banana Split Articulation Practice 

This interactive deck (get it here on Boom) is a great way to have a digital ice cream party... without the mess! As students move the ingredients to assemble the ice cream treat, target words containing their speech sounds are revealed. The deck uses high-frequency words and includes audio models to assist students in reading them, if needed. 

An open-ended card adds even more flexibility by allowing you to use your own words or target language development, too. Students can work on describing, requesting, answering questions, vocabulary practice, and creating sentences while moving each ice cream scoop and topping.

Reading Comprehension Activity

These Boom Cards (get them here on Boom) include short stories and passages with different summer themes, including a nonfiction passage about the history of ice cream. Students complete interactive comprehension activities targeting WH- questions, vocabulary, sequencing, and recall in an engaging digital format that is well-suited to speech therapy sessions.

PDF ACTIVITIES

PDFs are a go-to printable or digital activity for in-person sessions, teletherapy, or homework practice.

Mixed Group Activities

This digital PDF resource includes engaging ice cream activities designed to support a variety of speech and language goals during a speech therapy session. The resource incorporates helpful visual supports and multiple activities that make it easy to target articulation, vocabulary, sequencing, describing, and WH- questions with students in mixed groups.

Busy Picture Scene

The ice cream shop scene in this pack of busy picture scenes gives students a fun, summer-themed setting to practice listening and following directions. Students follow 1-step and 2-step directions with embedded basic concepts as they color and draw details throughout the ice cream parlor picture scene. The theme keeps students motivated while targeting receptive language, auditory comprehension, and negation, quantitative, temporal, and spatial concepts.

Fill-in-the-blank Passage

This summer-themed Speech Libs resource includes a variety of funny and engaging activities that help older students practice articulation and language using humor. Students complete a Mad Lib-style passage about the history of ice cream, giving you a fun way to target vocabulary, grammar, reading fluency, articulation carryover, and expressive language during speech therapy sessions.

WEBSITE ACTIVITIES

There are many website games and digital activities that can be an easy way to keep students engaged while targeting speech and language goals.

• In ABCYa's "Make an Ice Cream" game, students create their own virtual ice cream cone. While access to all ABCYa games is no longer free (😭), this one is full of language and vocabulary.

• Poki hosts a collection of ice cream games to explore. I especially like Papa's Scooperia, as it'd be a great resource for targeting social skills and life skills through an ice cream shop role-playing.

• Highlights Kids has a 7-question personality quiz where students can find out and discuss which ice cream flavor they are.

• For kids that don't mind (or thoroughly enjoy 😆) talking about kinda gross things, check out National Geographic Kids' list of 8 weird ice cream flavors.

VIDEOS

A video is a great addition to your ice cream week lesson plans and a free way to provide information and additional visuals. Check out these YouTube Links:

• TED-Ed provides this 5-minute video about the history of ice cream, which is full of information and best suited for older students.

• National Geographic Kids has a video sharing interesting facts about ice cream.

• This 8-minute video from How It's Made explains how ice cream is produced in factories.

• This quick 3-minute video about ice cream is a fun and engaging way to introduce students to interesting facts about one of their favorite desserts. Students learn about the history of ice cream, popular flavors, how ice cream is served around the world, and other fun facts in a student-friendly format. 

Summer speech therapy doesn’t have to be complicated with hours of planning and prep work. Creating a high-engagement, low-pressure environment with your favorite ice cream speech therapy activities helps students stay motivated while giving you more energy to enjoy the season too.

Need one more simple activity for summer speech therapy? You can also grab a free summer coloring page to use for articulation or language practice. And check out more engaging summer themes for speech therapy!

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