8 Maths Topics Made Fun With Cooking

Maths does not have to be dull and boring. Children can have fun engaging with maths through, cooking and baking. Cooking and baking gives lots of opportunity for children to practice their maths skills in a visual and tangible way.

Here are 8 maths topics that children can have fun with in the kitchen:

COUNTING

There are lots of opportunities to practice addition when cooking. Activities as simple as counting the right number of carrots needed when making a carrot cake or adding the number of slices of cheese needed for making 6 sandwiches for the family is all practice for building children's confidence with numbers. This can progress to addition, subtraction and multiplication to double recipes.

VOLUME & CAPACITY

Making mock-tails with children is not only a simple and refreshing child-friendly task, it is also a great way to engage children with volume in litres and millilitres.

Children can also be challenged to compare capacity when choosing what cup, mug or beaker to pour their mock-tail in to.

PATTERNS

Making fruit kebabs gives children the opportunity to explore patterns in a visual and tactile way.

Although a very simple task, this builds the foundation for children to learn the times tables as this is an exercise in pattern recognition.

RATIOS

Ratio is a key area of the Year 6 Maths curriculum so it is good news that children can lots of regular practice in the kitchen. Start simple with word problems which use the ratio language; ‘For every…, there are …’ that are written using the ratio symbol.

Making pancakes is a delicious way to use with ratios by following the simple 3:2:1 ratio ( 300ml milk, 2 eggs, 100g flour).

GEOMETRY

A fun way to explore the properties of different shapes is by making cookies or biscuits. Children can be challenged to make a shape that gives them the most cookies with the dough and asked to name the 2D shape they made. The child could be asked to think about whether the shapes they made are identical.

STATISTICS

Children interact with statistics throughout the average day more than they realise.

Children can be challenged to create a bar chart with the vegetables at home. Not only does this keep children engaged and gives them a sense of belonging, this also teaches children to collect and sort data in a real life scenario.

ANGLES

Imagine all the fun your child will have observing you preparing their favourite dinner while telling you all the angles you make with you hands during the meal preparation. A fun challenge is for children to practice piping foods at different angles and working out which angle gives the best results.

FRACTIONS

Children may not all love learning about fractions and division, but pizza is a favourite with most of them.

Children can have fun engaging with fractions when making and sharing pizza. When making savoury pizza they can divide the dough into quarters.

Once the pizza is made, talk to children about dividing for the family and challenge the child to divide into fractions.

Little Genius Club provides healthy and educational cooking classes and cooking kits for children. All of our products and services aim to inspire children to love maths and science through cooking.