After a day of math out at the park, it was time for a day of math in at the kitchen.

Veronika and I played around with kitchen math in a few ways. For a simple intro to math concepts, I sat her down for snack and made it all about comparisons. We used three different foods: apple wedges, bananas (cut into circles), and olives.

We could discuss the circular shapes of the bananas and olives. The apple wedges were more like semi-circles! Or we could compare items; the apple was longer than the banana. The banana was bigger than the olive. And so on.

Next up was far messier math; involve your toddler in cooking! While making a cookie recipe, I set Veronika up with her own station for filling cups of flour and scooping. “Can you help me fill two cups of flour?” I asked her.

Of course she couldn’t really, but I could point out that some measuring cups were bigger or smaller than others, or use vocabulary like “half” and “third” of  a cup even though she’s a long way from understanding that.

We also pulled out the kitchen scale to weigh flour together. “I want to scoop!” she said, proudly reaching deep into the flour bag.

This of course made a giant mess, but I find that flour play is worth it once in a while. Plus your toddler gets rewarded with a yummy treat if you’ve really baked during the messy play.

Note: If you want to introduce measuring to your toddler with less mess, consider a recipe like granola or baked oatmeal.