Summer’s here and it is hot outside. Maybe you have kids at home like I do asking you the same thing I hear every day over and over again, “Mom, I’m bored. Mom, what can we do? Mom, I’m bored.” Ok, well, I have an idea to help you out. Have you ever thought about making ice cream with them? I don’t mean anything fancy involving an ice cream maker, I mean making ice cream with a just a few simple ingredients and plastic bags, salt and ice. It’s fun. It's easy. It’s fast, and it's delicious. And it will cool them down in the summer heat and keep the, "I'm bored" talk at bay for at least a while. Most kids love ice cream. Most adults love ice cream. Making ice cream is great to do as a family, or even when your child invites a friend over during the summer. If you have a younger child, you will need to help them make it. Older kids can read directions and do it on their own (Yes, make them work for it😊).
I learned how to make ice cream in a bag when I taught health to 7th graders. I let my students make ice cream in class after we finished our nutrition lessons. I usually wrapped up our nutrition unit with two fun activities-“Nutrition Day” and “Making Ice Cream Day”. For the Nutrition Day, students volunteered to bring in foods from the different food groups (and nutrient groups). We celebrated the end of the unit by eating yummy foods we all brought in.
For the Ice Cream Day, well, it’s simple what we did-we made ice cream! Students from each class signed up to volunteer to bring in paper towels, spoons, milk/creamer, vanilla, toppings, and baggies ahead of time. I made sure we had enough ingredients and materials so that we could make enough ice cream for everyone. I usually brought in the sugar, and let them bring in the rest, and it always worked out.
Adding Making Ice Cream into Your Lessons:
HEALTH CLASS- Ice cream is a food at the top of the food pyramid-which students' study as part of their health class. Students are taught that they should limit the amount of food they eat that belong to the tip of the food pyramid, as too much can lead to obesity, diabetes, and other health problems. So, for ice cream day, they were told as much as they might want two servings, they could only have one serving of ice cream :).
Ice cream, because of the milk in it has many important minerals our bodies require, such as calcium, potassium, phosphorus, riboflavin, and vitamins D, A, and B12. Ice cream is also a good source of fat, protein, and carbohydrates. All these can be discussed as a class before making the ice cream. And if you are using oat milk, soymilk, or almond milk, you are also getting a good source of fiber as you eat the ice cream. So, as you can see, this fun activity can easily be incorporated into your nutrition unit based on all the nutrition that is in the dairy and non-dairy milks.
BIOLOGY CLASS-If you teach biology, this can work in your lessons as well. It can fit into your digestive system lesson plans as a fun way to end the unit, or in the biological molecules of life lessons, when students study the chemical structures of fats, carbohydrates, nucleic acids, and protein, and the differences between saturated and unsaturated fats.
PHYSICAL SCIENCE/CHEMISTRY CLASS-If you teach physical science, this activity is great to add to your lessons when learning about physical and chemical changes. Making ice cream is an example of a physical change. The cream, sugar, and vanilla turn into ice cream when reaching freezing temperatures. If it is left to melt, the milk is still milk, the vanilla is still vanilla, and the sugar is still sugar-there are no changes to their chemical structures.
Another physical science application is salt’s ability to lower the freezing point of the water by a few degrees. This is what happens when salt is added to the bag with ice. The water on the ice cubes melts and gets colder than it would if it did not have salt on it. This makes the ingredients in the bag get cold enough to turn into ice cream fast. The ice absorbs heat from the milk mixture and the milk mixture becomes colder until it hardens into ice cream. This is an example of an endothermic reaction, so this activity can work well with your classes when learning about endothermic and exothermic reactions.
So, are you ready to try it? Okay, let's start with what you'll need:
MATERIALS NEEDED
1 Gallon plastic zip bags (Use the freezer bags)
1 Quart plastic Sandwich zip bags (Use the freezer bags)
Large cooler filled with ice (If using it for a class in school setting).
Rock Salt or Kosher salt
Half-and-Half creamer and/or milk of your choice
Sugar
Vanilla
Paper towels! *Shaking the bag can get things a bit messy and wet.
Plastic spoons
Small cups or bowls
Gloves (Optional)
Various toppings for ice cream (Optional but does make it taste yummier!)
ICE CREAM IN A BAG INGREDIENTS
1 cup half-and-half creamer (or ½ cup whole milk ½ cup creamer)
*You can also use chocolate milk for chocolate ice cream.
2 tbsp. granulated sugar
½ tsp. vanilla
3 cups of ice
1/3 cup rock salt or Kosher salt (coarse salt)
-Toppings of your choice, like chocolate syrup, caramel drizzle, strawberries, crushed cookies, or sprinkles. You can even add peppermint oil, for a minty ice cream and chocolate chips for a mint chocolate chip ice cream. My personal favorite is fresh strawberries and caramel drizzle on top.
HOW TO MAKE ICE CREAM IN A BAG
Step 1
In a small, quart size plastic bag, combine the half-and-half, sugar, and vanilla. Squeeze out the extra air in the bag and be sure to seal it tight. *Using the thicker plastic bags will help prevent seepage of salt getting into the ice cream, as thin bags break easier when they are shaken a lot. If you use a non-freezer bag, it can still work, just be careful not to make holes in the bag as you shake it.
Step 2
Add the ice and salt to the larger, gallon size bag. Next, place the sealed smaller bag that has the milk, sugar, and vanilla mixture in it inside this bigger bag. Seal the larger bag. Shake the bag vigorously for about 10 minutes, until the milk, sugar, vanilla mixture has hardened into ice cream. You might find that the bag gets very cold, so for this reason you may want to wear gloves as you shake away.
Step 3
Scoop out the ice cream and place it in a small cup. Add any toppings to the ice cream you like, then grab a spoon and enjoy!
*DAIRY FREE ICE CREAM-Some of your kids may be allergic to dairy or be lactose intolerant. So, for them you can use almond, soy, or oat milk creamer/milk instead of the dairy half and half. If using a vanilla non-dairy milk, then you don’t need to add vanilla when making the ice cream, or you can just add a little, since the vanilla flavor is already in the milk.
GET THEM THINKING AND EATING
You can have your kids at home try to make ice cream in a bag using regular salt and see if it turns out different than the one using the rock salt. They can also try making another batch of ice cream with no salt in the ice bag and see the difference between that ice cream and the one with salt added to it.
20 THINGS KIDS TO DO AT HOME
While this ice cream in a bag summer activity won’t occupy your child’s whole day, it will give them something to have fun with for a while at least. With kids, you just have to stay creative in order to make their summer-at-home-time engaging. Trust me. I am always looking for new ideas with my own kids. Sure, there are summer day camps you can put them in, but some of these are expensive, especially if you have more than one child. Here are some other ideas (Inexpensive ones) for things to do at home with your kids.
1. Science and Health Thinking Bingos- these can be played at home, not just in a biology or
health class. Kids can learn facts about heart health, tobacco, drugs, alcohol use,
nutrition, and more while playing these. You can even add a small prize box for the winners to
make it more fun to play.
2. Puzzles
3. Engaging magazines (Puzzle Buzz magazine subscriptions are fun-my kids love these!).
4. Art and crafts
5. Read books. Take a trip to your local bookstore. We love Half Price books.
6. Build tall towers using plastic cups.
7. Build something creative with colorful magnetic tiles for kids.
8. Learn a new hobby or brush up on core classes skills with an online small group class.
9. Get creative baking or cooking (if your child is old enough, they can do this on their own).
10. Get outside and play soccer, badminton, basketball, or ride a bike.
*Recommend you supervise them at all times if outside.
11. Sidewalk chalk-they can have an art contest or a sidewalk chalk art display.
12. Brush up on math and reading skills. I have my kids do one page of math from a grade level
workbook and some sort of reading or writing activity every day (except for weekends) to
keep their minds sharp in the summer.
13. Read up on the next math, science or history course they will be taking (For example, if your
child is taking chemistry next year, give them engaging study material on chemistry to read
up on, so when they take the course in school, it won't be that difficult or new to them.
14. Do "at home friendly" science experiments..
15. Swim in an inflatable pool (or regular pool if you have one!) or play with water balloons
outside in the backyard. As always, supervise kids when outdoors, especially younger ones.
16. Create a scrapbook-lets your kids gather up their favorite work from the school year and
arrange them in a nice scrapbook that you can buy online or at your local craft store.
17. I love this one: have them clean their rooms or do extra chores around the house with some
sort of incentive for doing these.
18. If they play an instrument, have them play/practice for 30 minutes a day.
19. Fidgets! Give them a task to try and create their OWN fidgets! My kids did this one summer,
and got very creative with them! It amazed me to see the kind of fidgets they came up with.
Just go to the Dollar store or craft store and buy several different craft supplies to do this.
You will also discover that a lot of the supplies needed to make homemade fidgets are things
already lying around your home.
20. Video games and TV (Notice I put these last😊). I like to put a cap on screen time.
According to my children’s doctor, screen time should be kept to two hours a day, as you
probably already know, for many GOOD reasons…hmmm, maybe my next post?).
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