Let's Make Ice Cream! – Game for Toddlers

Let's Make Ice Cream is a fun and engaging game to learn the little ones various skills. The goal of the game is simple: have fun making pretend ice cream!

What you need

You will need different colours of filament. Any filament will do, and no supports are needed. This game also comes with a PDF with cards that explain the recipes. You will need a colour printer to print the PDF. You'll need an empty, clean pot. You'll need a spoon.

How to play

Different recipe cards have different difficulties (more ingredients, different quantities). For the first playthrough it is best to sort them from easy to hard. To do so, sort them by number of distinct ingredients. If multiple cards have the same number of distinct ingredients sort them by number of total ingredients. The PDFs are provided in both A4 and letter format. Print the one for your paper size. Read the license at the bottom. You're only free to use the PDF for personal use. Cut out each card on the black line. A Cricut or similar can also do this for you.

An example of a recipe is chocolate ice cream: you need 3 brown chocolate, 1 white bottle of milk, and 1 white ice cube/sugar. It is your choice if you let them read the instructions or if you read it to them. Tell them the ingredient or the colour. Help them count, or let them count by themselves. Different tasks let them learn different skills. Then comes the best part! Get a pot, get a spoon or spatula, and let them throw the ingredients in the pot and stir vigorously. Done, ice cream made!

The 3D prints

Most models are designed to easily allows layer switching for accent colours. If you don't want a layer shift then a (permanent) marker works just as well to add an extra dash of colour. 

The models are:

1. milk bottle – white works well, looks great if the “cap” is printed in different colour;
2. chocolate with a chunk bitten out – works well in brown;
3. vanilla pod – brown;
4. banana – yellow with brown accents, has a rim for colour switching;
5. ice/sugar cube – white or translucent;
6. strawberry – red with green accents, has a rim for colour switching;
7. mint – green with dark green accents, has a rim for colour switching;
8. orange – orange!

How many of each do you need to print? A full set, allowing you to make every ice cream recipe, consists of 9 milk, 10 cubes, 5 chocolate, 1 vanilla pod, 1 orange, 2 mint, 3 banana, and 2 strawberry. A minimal set, where you have to reuse the ingredients, is just 1 milk, 1 cube, 1 vanilla pod, 1 orange, 1 mint, 1 strawberry, 2 banana, and 3 chocolate.

Print time for the minimal set is about 8 hours with a 0.4 nozzle, and about 3 hours with an 0.8 nozzle.

Copyright

You are free to do with the 3D models what you want with attribution. These are licensed as Creative Commons – Attribution.

The illustrations in the PDF are copyright Smarthound: https://smarthound.uk and are in active commercial use. I hereby grant anyone a perpetual license to the PDF and its illustrations for the sole purpose of printing it for personal use. You do not have permission to remix or reproduce the illustrations in the PDF for any other use, including commercial use.