Creative Activities for Kids

When I feel like my kids are sick of doing learning activities, I try to think of ways to make them excited again. One of the ways I do that is by incorporating things they’re interested in into the activities.

I don’t know about yours, but my kids love ice cream and cupcakes. In fact, today after lunch, my 2-year-old begged to get ice cream at “Donald’s” (McDonalds).

 Sweet Treat Themed Activities for Toddlers & Preschoolers

So, I created a few activities all centered around treats! Do these with a bowl of ice cream on the side, or as the reward for finishing. Or just talk about all of your favorite flavors together. However you do these activities, your kids will be excited and it will surely start some fun conversations.

I’ll go through each activity and the reason behind it and what age group it is generally appropriate for. As always, all of these activities can be done with my go-to supplies that I love to use at home.

CVC ICE CREAM BOWLS (recommended for ages 3-5)

CVC words are words that are made up of a Consonant Vowel and a Consonant—hence CVC. They are some of the first words your little reader will learn to sound out. These short, easy to read words are what will help your early readers begin to understand the concept of sounding out a word and blending sounds together.

For this activity, you will need only two things: this worksheet and a dot marker.

Start by reading through all the words together. If your child struggles, that’s ok! That’s the point of the activity. Then go in with the dot marker. Instruct your child to say the sound that the first letter makes as they mark a dot above it. Then continue this for the next two letters.

For example, “Cuh” (dot) “A” (dot) “T” (dot). Then say the word together “cat”.

Go through all the letters making dots, or ice cream scoops, on top of each letter. If you have multiple colors, you can make your scoops of ice cream all different colors. While the dots will remain on the page, you can always go back in with another color or even the same color to repeat this activity!

CUPCAKE SPRINKLE FINE MOTOR (recommended for ages 2-3, but can be enjoyed by any age as a fun craft)

If you have read any of my blogs or social media posts you know how I feel about fine motor skills. They are seriously so important for so many aspects of life. It helps your child become more independent and will be beneficial for the rest of their life!!

This activity is a craft with a hidden developmental aspect to it. I like to mix up the ways I use painting. I know it can get messy, but I really feel like this is one of the cleaner ways my kids paint.

For this activity all you need is a small cup of paint (use one color or have fun and use a bunch), a q tip, and this paper.

Have your child dip the tip of their q tip in paint and dot it on the paper to make sprinkles.

The fine motor skills get put to work when they are dotting on the page. It’s easy to spread the paint, but by making intentional dots on the page, they will work those little muscles in their hands. Fine motor skills also  come into play in the grip on the q tip. This will help them better grip a pencil! 

Cupcake Dot Stickers (recommended for ages 2-4) 

Dot stickers are another great way to work on fine motor skills. The act of removing the sticker and placing them in the correct spot is great! 

My favorite tip for using stickers is to remove the background of the stickers. It helps so much and really lets your child get a good grip on the sticker. (Watch this video if that doesn’t make sense J)

This activity only requires dot stickers and this page or this page.

Have your child fill the white circles with dot sticker sprinkles on the cupcakes.

Don’t have dot stickers on hand? Try using a dot marker or pom poms. For the pom poms you could also use children’s tweezers to pick them up. This would add an extra fine motor aspect to the activity as well!

Cupcake Memory (ages 3-6)

I remember playing so many versions of memory growing up! I loved them and so do my kids. This is definitely an activity that requires more focus, so your child needs to be prepared for that.

Before I sit my kids down for activities like this, I try to make sure they have had plenty of time outside or running around before. That way I know the wiggles won’t take over. (Check out this blog post for 50 outdoor activities we love!) 

For this activity all you will need is this paper and scissors. Print it out and then cut out the squares. Look at all of them together with your child. Let them see that there are 2 of each kind of cupcake. Then turn them over so the cupcakes are face down. For younger kids, you can just line them up face up and have them find matching pairs.

If you are doing it with them face down, have your child turn 2 squares over. If they match, they keep them and get another turn. If they don’t match, they turn them back over and it’s another person’s turn!

Memory games are so great for concentration, focus, and other brain functions. Also, the act of finding matching pairs is great for noticing similarities and differences, which is surprisingly an important early math skill!

Coloring Page (any age, I even colored one and had fun, haha)

Coloring is a great activity for quiet time. There’s no need for instruction and children can do it completely independently. Print this page out and let your child color to their heart’s content!

There’s my simple round up of some fun, sweet treat- themed activities! Things like this get my kids excited and it’s always important to be excited about learning! Learning is supposed to be fun at all ages, but especially as a kid! Fun, themed activities like these can be found in my activity boxes, try them here!

Have fun, I hope you love these! Follow me on Instagram!