This ice cream activity is also a working memory activity that combines the two themes into a hit of a therapy tool…a lot like combining ice cream and sprinkles! If building working memory skills this summer is on your to-do list, than this interactive ice cream ice cream activity is sure to be a hit! Add this to your summer OT activities and let’s build executive functioning skills!
Working Memory Activity
Working memory is a skill that can be difficult for many children but is used and needed for so many functional tasks. Working memory is an executive functioning skill that kids need for safety completing assignments reading participating in self-care tasks interacting with others and basically every task that we complete throughout the day.
We use working memory to complete school tasks, self-care tasks, and everyday living tasks!
Processing short term memories and using it allows us to respond in new situations. Working memory allows us to learn, play, and interact with the world around us. The skill allows us to self-regulate, and pull strategies that have worked (or didn’t work) for us in the past. Using working memory skills we can use past information in reading in order to read, spell, know math facts, phone numbers, faces, addresses, sight words…and so much more. We can remember our way back home, state capitals, mnemonics, phone numbers, addresses, and friends’ names. We can then use that information to answer questions based on what we know and apply that information in new situations. All of these abilities are working memory at work!
Ice Cream Working Memory Activity
That’s where this ice cream activity that address is working memory is comes in handy.
This ice cream working memory activity is a free virtual slide deck that can be used with teletherapy or to facilitate face-to-face therapy sessions as well as home programming or school activities.
In the ice cream working memory slide deck kids can move through the slides and work on various skills while they complete each slides instructions. The slide deck is designed to support and practice skills including:
- working memory
- visual attention
- visual scanning
- eye-hand coordination
- direction following
- sequencing
This slide deck is able to be graded to expand the activities and make them easier or harder for individual students based on their needs.
You can grade the activities by asking students to complete two or more tasks for each slide.
For example you can read the directions on the slide and then add additional steps or additional details that they need to remember and recall. Each ice cream ice cream on the slide deck is movable so this interactive slide deck is an interesting and fun way to work on specific skills for kids. When you open this slide deck in your Google Drive you can edit it in order to move the individual ice cream cones.
This is an engaging and motivating way for kids to work on listening sequencing motor planning and direction following. And this slide deck can be adjusted so that it addresses specifically different needs for kids you can for example move the ice cream cones to other areas on the slide that were give them to individual children based on descriptive colors or positions so that you’re working on other skills as well such as body awareness and position in space or other listening and comprehension skills.
Working Memory Activity for handwriting
When we write or copy material, we need to recall how to hold the pencil including verbal cues or physical cues we’ve experienced in the past. The ability to recall those cues during a similar task involved working memory. The ability to translate those cues to a muscle memory involves working memory as well.
You can see how working memory plays a role in letter formation, number formation, line use, spacing, sizing, pencil grasp, margin use, capitalization, punctuation, and overall legibility in handwriting.
Ice Cream Activity for Working Memory Skills
The slide deck with an ice cream theme is very engaging and fun for kids and it can be used to work on other areas to such as handwriting and visual motor skills.
There are several slides in the slide deck that work address on hand writing and copying skills kids can copy the different ice cream terms in and work on handwriting skills such as:
- letter formation
- letter size
- line awareness
- copying from a distant or near point
There are also drawing activities to address visual motor skills.
Kids can copy the simple and complex forms on the slide deck and work on details that are needed for copying work such as handwriting or lists in the classroom. When kids copy from a form they are working on visual motor skills in order to copy the form but they are also furthering their working memory skills by not missing any pieces of the drawing.
There are so many ways to use this engaging and motivating ice cream activity to work on working number memory skills!
Would you like to add this ice cream working memory activity to your therapy Toolbox? Enter your email address into the form below and you can access this therapy tour on your Google Drive. It’s able to be used in teletherapy sessions home programming face-to-face therapy sessions or in the home or classroom.
More Ice Cream Activities
Want more movement activities? Check out these fun ideas:
- Ice Cream Play Dough Mat
- Ice Cream Craft for Kids
- EASY Ice Cream Bean Bags
- Healthy Ice Cream Cone Snack (that builds visual perception & color recognition, detail awareness skills!)
- Summer OT Activities
Colleen Beck, OTR/L has been an occupational therapist since 2000, working in school-based, hand therapy, outpatient peds, EI, and SNF. Colleen created The OT Toolbox to inspire therapists, teachers, and parents with easy and fun tools to help children thrive. Read her story about going from an OT making $3/hour (after paying for kids’ childcare) to a full-time OT resource creator for millions of readers. Want to collaborate? Send an email to contact@theottoolbox.com.
