Cooking And Counting – Introducing Maths In The Kitchen

From the moment your little one could hear; they have heard numbers all around them. Nursery rhymes, songs and daily dialogue will help them begin to understand that numbers form an important part of life. Helping your child learn to count before they start school will lay a solid foundation for future learning and their home is the perfect environment to gain confidence with the basics of numbers and maths.

Counting is a fundamental skill involved in so many activities and concepts that they will come across, from using money to telling the time. Developing early maths skills will help your child’s critical thinking, problem solving and reasoning, benefiting them in nearly all areas of their cognitive development.

Ideas For Learning To Count In The Kitchen

With all the ingredients, measuring devices and timers, your kitchen is the ideal place in the home to start talking about basic maths with your child. You’ll be giving them an early introduction to Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) concepts, with the added bonus of a delicious treat at the end! Here are some of our favourite ideas for getting them actively learning with you in the kitchen:

• Start early by getting them sitting with you whilst you cook or bake. Describe what you are doing and sing relevant songs or nursery rhymes. We love ‘5 Currant Buns in a Bakers Shop’ – change currant buns to whatever you are making! Or ‘Ten Fat Sausages Sizzling In The Pan’ is great to get them singing along with you.
• Once children have developed basic motor skills, they’ll love to get hands on in the kitchen. Let them cut out biscuits with different shapes, naming them as you go.
• Give them small independent tasks with a maths twist – sorting fruit, eggs or other ingredients by size or colour. Make comparisons and develop their reasoning by asking them to select the biggest and smallest or to pick out a certain number.
• Introduce the concept of timing by showing that when the timer goes off, the treat you’ve made together is ready. Small children can be fascinated by egg timers and wind-up timers and will love setting and resetting them, especially if there’s a fun noise involved!
• Get them measuring with cups and spoons. Simple recipes such as pancakes give them the opportunity to test their understanding of full, empty and half, reinforcing early comprehension of fractions.
• Pizza, cake, omelettes and pies all make fantastic teaching tools for fractions and symmetry and are fun to eat after they’ve been portioned up!
• Our Magnetic Fridge Numbers are perfect for your little ones to get to grips with the shape of numbers and create their own simple equations, or pick out the right symbol when asked.

As Their Confidence In Numbers Grows

Along with the learning benefits, quality time together learning basic life skills in the kitchen is a lovely memory to create with your small child. As they grow, you can expand their knowledge by introducing more complex ideas like fractions and ratios. Find recipes that use simple round numbers and talk them through changing the quantities to feed the right number of people. Cooking also gives you the opportunity to reinforce their understanding of hot and cold and how temperatures work.

As their confidence grows, there are opportunities to let them test out simple arithmetic. In the supermarket, point out prices and add up your shopping list together to help develop their understanding of money and prices. Set challenges to work on together, such as how much recipes cost or how long a meal will take to cook. Let your child lead the way, and encourage trying new ideas and getting hands on, even if it gets a little messy!

These early explorations of maths and science concepts will give them a positive and confident start in STEM understanding which will benefit them when they start school and could spark a passion for learning more in the future…

As part of our Learning To Count series, we’re sharing lots of ideas for helping your little one get to grips with this important skill. If you want to get out and about and find fun ways of talking about maths whilst getting exercise and fresh air, read the next blog in the series, Counting With Nature.

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