Make Cooking count!
Wednesday 15th February 2023
Make Cooking Count!
Maths is such a huge part of cooking. It is the perfect way to get children to learn mathematical skills without even realising. During the course of a recipe, you can count, weigh, estimate, recognise numbers, use spatial awareness, recognise shapes and even use simple division and multiplication, addition and subtraction.
Recognising the opportunities for practice or introduction of mathematical skills is key. Rather than asking a child to tip a bowl of blueberries into a mixing bowl, ask them to count them in. When pouring cake mix into a muffin tray to make cupcakes, ask your child to count how many rows and columns there are. Ask children to estimate how many tomatoes (or whatever!) are in a bowl and then count them to check. Use different shape cookie cutters and introduce or recap each shape name.
We use digital scales a lot with our older foodies in our after school class and these are great to practice recognising 2 and 3 digit numbers. They are also really good for children to understand the concept of estimating and rounding. Sometimes 102 grams is absolutely fine when you are aiming for 100 grams, however, it is funny to see how adamant some children are that they need to get the weight spot on! It is fun to add or take away tiny amounts to get that exact number!
Happy cooking and counting!
