Ice Cream Truck: Invitation to Play

This is how we do an "Invitation to Play" in our house.  If you read Monday's post, you know that we were having fun with math and ice cream.   As we near the end of our "Sweet Treats" week, I thought it would be fun to let the kids have some imaginative play time.  We read the book The Little Ice Cream Truck (Little Vehicles), which Wyatt especially loved.  I asked if they wanted to make their own pretend ice cream truck and, of course, they did.  I gave them a basket of random play food and DUPLO ice cream toys, the play cash register, and let them have at it!  They decided to use their play table and chairs rearranged to be the truck.  Ava made the sign for their truck and then came up with a menu.  We all spent a lot of time being customers (too bad they weren't serving real ice cream)!  They did fight over the cash register a little bit.  We got ours at the thrift store a year or so ago, but you can find them on amazon, too.  It is the Learning Resources Pretend & Play Teaching Cash Register, and if we hadn't found it at the thrift store, it definitely would have gone on our kids' holiday wish lists!

They had a blast and it it was so fun to listen to them play.  Ava got to practice some math with the cash register, too.  I love the picture of Ava explaining the menu to my husband.  And Wyatt was pretty pleased with his purchase from the truck, as well.  They took turns being the customer, the cashier, and the "ice cream maker."  This entertained them for several days and it reminded me that I need to do these "Invitation to Play" days with them more often!  This cost us zero money because we used things we already had on hand, and took very little time to throw together.  Total winner in my busy-working-mom book.

And in the "real life" category:  Check out the impressive amount of fingerprints on our TV screen.