As an elementary school teacher, I often meet students who struggle to connect mathematical concepts to their own experiences. Cooking together with children is a perfect and effective way to help them link math to real life from an early age. By involving kids in the kitchen, we can introduce measurement, volume, fractions, and time management in a hands-on way, making math more concrete and easier to understand.
So, which concepts can you focus on when cooking with children, and how can you make it educational? Here are some simple tips:
Double and Half
Let your child help divide fruits and vegetables in half, or talk about quantities when following a recipe. If a recipe calls for four eggs, start by placing two and challenge your child’s mathematical thinking by saying that you need double that amount.
You can also use time to discuss halves. For example, when something is baking in the oven, show your child how much time has passed by saying, "Half the time has gone, how much is left?" This provides a concrete example of “half” and helps children connect the concept to both time and quantities.
Volume and Measurement
Volume and measurement are a natural part of cooking and offer an excellent opportunity to learn about different units. Let your child help measure ingredients like flour, oats, or liquids, and highlight different units such as dl (deciliters), tbsp, and tsp. How many tablespoons fit in 1 dl? Let your child measure different ingredients and compare the amounts. This gives a practical understanding of volume and a sense of proportion.
Geometry
The kitchen is a perfect place to talk about shapes and symmetry. When baking or making a pizza, show your child how to divide a large cake or pizza into equal parts. Discuss shapes such as circles, squares, and triangles. Let your child shape dough or a cake and talk about creating symmetrical patterns or dividing a round shape into equal portions. This provides a visual understanding of geometry while allowing them to be creative.
Counting
Count ingredients out loud together with your child. Sort berries into different piles and add up the total. Challenge them with subtraction by, for example, removing one berry and counting how many remain.
Time Awareness
Let your child estimate how long it will take to boil pasta or bake a pizza. Use a timer and talk about how long things take, discussing the time remaining. If something should cook for 10 minutes, you can ask, "How much time has passed?" and "How much time is left?" This helps children understand the passage of time and teaches them how to estimate and measure time in everyday life.
Here are some concepts that often appear in school and are therefore worth emphasizing while cooking with children from an early age:
Half
Double
Equals
Fewer
More
Measurement
Pattern
Shape
Square
Circle
Triangle
Rectangle
