As the scorching summer heat rolls in, I find myself on a mission to keep my little ones entertained while also helping them stay cool. Especially after we had so much fun with our lemonade stand last week, I knew I had to keep the fun times going! That's when it hit me: snow cones!

And trust me, after testing this out with my in-home preschool learners, this is an activity I know your kids will love! In this blog post, I'll guide you through the step-by-step process of setting up your own snow cone pretend play center!

Step 1: Gather Your Supplies

You can choose to use real items or pretend play items. Since I wanted to beat the heat, I decided to use real world items!

• Shaved ice: you can do this by using a blender to shave the ice.
• Snow Cone Flavors: I used food coloring, sugar and water and added them to a squeeze bottle. You can also add flavoring (like MiO flavoring) to these bottles to make it taste even better!
• Squeeze bottles
• Spoons
• Bowls
• Cups
• Snow cone cups
• Straws
• Scoops
• Sensory bins/ market stand, tables, use whatever you have for your dramatic play space.

Step 2: Set Up

I would highly recommend bring this dramatic play center outside because it will get messy! Especially if you use food coloring - RIP my sensory table - it has been stained with love after one of my kids squeezed an entire bottle all over!

To set up my snow cone stand I brought out my market stand, sensory table and a couple small tables. Don't have any of these items? Thats ok, use whatever you have one hand!

I always think that pictures speak louder than words so here are photos of how I set up my snow cone stand area with signs, banners, etc.

Step 3: Create Snow Cone Recipes

This snow cone set already includes pre made recipe cards, but I wanted the kids to get more involved in their snow cone making process. So what better way then to have them create their own recipes!

I printed a bunch of these craft pages and sat each child down to take turns creating their own recipes!

This was by far one of my favorite parts of this activity because it was time for me to connect with my preschoolers and learn more about what flavors they love and more about their favorite things!

Step 4: Time to Play

Now, it's the moment your little one has been waiting for—time to make snow cones! Encourage your kids to take turns being the customer, the cashier, and making snow cones. They can follow the recipes to create delicious snow cones, take orders from their "customers," count money, and taste their yummy creations!

Even though we pretty much just squeezed sugar water onto shaved ice, the kids LOVED it! I did not limit the amount they ate because I only added a small amount of sugar to each bottle so they were actually eating 90% ice.

And guess what? They didn't care at all! I'm pretty sure they were so excited to simply make the snow cones that the taste was secondary but of course you can add in whatever flavors your littles would love!