Time to Fix Supper, Time for Math!

Bonus points to anyone who can tell who's who! 

From the time Sassy and MiniMe were old enough to stand up, they've wanted to know what I'm doing in the kitchen. When they were toddlers we got a "Learning Tower" (really fancy, big "stool" with walls) that let them be up at counter height and see what was going on, they LOVED it! And even at age 5, when they hadn't USED it in years, were broken-hearted when I sold it.

Little Bit didn't get a Learning Tower (no room in this kitchen for such a beast LOL), and she has sisters to distract her, so sometimes she helps us cook, sometimes she plays with one sister while the other cooks, or whatever, but she's still had her fair share of time in the kitchen already.

And so begins "kitchen school" at Broad Horizons. . . from watching me, and helping add ingredients and stir, to beginning to measure ingredients, and read recipes, to making things all on their own (except for putting them in the oven, or cutting some things or whatever), and finally to doubling and halving recipes, the kitchen is a wonderful place to learn math!!!


I can remember when MiniMe was 5 or 6, some lovely "educational" TV show had "taught" her that "math is hard". I asked her what made her think that, and she told me that so-and-so (tv character) had said it. Sigh! I just dropped it, but later that day when we were cooking, I made sure to have her do some math (well beyond first grade math too . . . I think I had her adding fractions!). After she'd effortlessly given me the correct answer, I asked her if that was hard, and she looked at me like I had two heads. THEN I told her "you just did math, was it hard?" And that was the end of "math is hard" from her (until more recently when we've reviewed some math products that weren't really her thing LOL.

As they've gotten older, I've had fun throwing a few curve balls at them . . .how do you halve a recipe that calls for 1/3 of something? Or I'll teach them "tricks", like if a recipe calls for 1/4 c of Cocoa, it's easier to just use 4 Tbsp, because the Tbsp fits in the Cocoa jar. They keep learning math, and loving it. And sometimes we throw in some science too . . .

This post is a part of The Schoolhouse Review Crew's 5 Days of Teaching Creatively.