Growing your own food can happen anywhere. From a small planter on the window sill to tilling the soil in your yard. Personally, I enjoy a mixture of pots and raised planters. Hardware stores with garden centers or Greenhouses are great resources to help you get started. I use pots for large root vegetables, potatoes and sweet potatoes, and for herbs that will take over the yard like mint or lemon balm. Trust me on the lemon balm! My son convinced me to put it in my raised planter several years ago and I am still regularly pulling it out because it is trying to overrun my carrots, strawberries, and melons.

At my former child care, spring was full of garden planning. I love how easy it was to incorporate a variety of different math explorations into growing food we would eat for our snacks or lunch. First we would count the number of pots that would be used for vegetables/fruits compared to flowers. Then, the seed packets were spread out on the table and the children voted on which ones they wanted to grow. There were a limited number of pots, so we could not plant all of the seeds. Peas, beans, and carrots were some of the favorites.  My family liked large tomatoes but the preschoolers did not until I introduced both cherry and pear varieties. These quickly became an annual favorite. Their small size, fun shape, sweet taste, and quick growing was intriguing to them. They would spend time during the day counting the yellow flowers and green tomatoes talking about how many they would eat.

After cleaning, the group would decide how many tomatoes each person would get to eat. This was a great way to explore the concepts of division and “fair”. Anyone with young children can validate that children will quickly notice if you have more than they do. This also gave us the chance to explore fractions in a fun and engaging way. When there was not an even amount, which happened often, we would cut up the remaining tomatoes so that everyone would have a piece. This gave me the opportunity to talk with the children about fractions, such as ½, ⅓ , and ¼. Cutting a cherry or pear tomato into 1/4ths takes some practice! There is a great trick that you can use with two plates to cut large groups in ½ quickly. Click here to watch! There was a great deal of counting and recounting to make sure everyone had the same amount. Then the feast would begin.

Many years later I had a family of my own with two young boys, two cats, and a dog. From the time the boys were able to carry things steadily, they were encouraged to help with the feeding. They would count out the number of scoops of dry food or treats for the dog. The cats would get an occasional treat of a ¼ of the cat food can. Some days it was more like a ⅓ but they were learning. Now they are adults with pets of their own. Jason has a beautiful Rottweiler, Bailey, and Derek a feisty Border Collie mix named Thor.

In his youth Derek had explored the idea of being a chef and briefly owned a catering business along with publishing a cookbook. Before moving to a different career path he decided to publish a children’s book that would focus on the peanut butter puppy treats that he made for Thor. Together we collaborated on a book that I could use when teaching my early childhood curriculum class. The book touched on concepts from both science and math. We took inspiration from the book, Thunder Cake by P. Polacco regarding creating a story that would also incorporate a cooking activity.

In Polacco’s book a young girl collects the ingredients to make a cake all while overcoming her fear of the impending thunderstorm. As she put together the ingredients for the cake she counted the number of eggs and tomatoes needed. Yes, I said tomatoes and the recipe is quite good and worth the effort.

In Derek’s book his dog Thor wants to eat people food which is not good for him. So he selects the peanut butter treats recipe from the cookbook and helps Derek to make the treats. There are a variety of different simple measuring and counting activities throughout the book and in the end Thor enjoys his treat. We decided to add a couple of pages in the back of the book to discuss the importance of owning a dog and some fun expansion activities. The treats are quick and easy to make. Every time we make them all the dogs come running.

Cooking is a great way to connect with others, learn life skills along with exploring science and math. Home cooks regularly double and half recipes depending on the number of people they are going to feed. Sometime cooks  need to calculate a different cooking time depending on the humidity and elevation. Having extra little hands helping out may slow down the process, but children will be gaining an understanding of measurement in a more meaningful way than simple paper and pencil tasks that they may experience in school.

Keep the goals for this activity simple.  I would only use words like “quarter”, “half” and “whole” to describe the fractions.

Cut circles (about the size of a pie tin) out of light brown construction paper.  Leave one “whole” and write the word “whole” on the circle.  You can also write a large number 1 on the pie to indicate that it is “1 whole pie”.

Cut one of the other circles halfway down the middle.  On each half you can write the word “half” and write 1/2 to indicate that each side equals half a pie.

With the third circle, cut the pie into quarters.  Write the word “quarter” on each piece and 1/4 to indicate that it is one quarter of a whole pie.

Place all of the pieces on a table and have the children put the pieces together to make whole pies, half pies and quarter pies.  Allow them to explore the pieces as if they were a puzzle to see how to create a whole pie.  Ask the children to show you a half a pie, or a quarter of a pie.  Watch what happens.  Which children are able to identify the different fractions?  Who needs more experience and exposure?

Later, bring out a real pie and cut it into pieces that represent halves and quarters.  If you bake mini pies, children can choose to have a “whole” pie to themselves.

YUM!