Christmastime provides many opportunities to incorporate homeschooling into the busy holiday preparations. Even if you’re taking a break from formal homeschooling during the Christmas holiday, there are easy ways to add learning to holiday fun. Adding Christmas math into your kitchen is a great way to change up your homeschool math class for the holidays!
It’s no secret that I’m no mathematician, so I’m always looking for ways to make math fun for both my kids and I. Since we follow a child led homeschooling method, its important that I add hands-on math activities to things my children actually enjoy doing.
Making Christmas Math in the Kitchen Fun
As we’re heading into the Christmas season many of us will be spending quite a bit of time in the kitchen. From baking delicious goodies to preparing Christmas dinner menus. Creating grocery shopping lists and SO much more. This year take advantage of this time and teach Christmas math in the kitchen!
Christmas math in the kitchen is a great way to make learning math fun and easy! The best part of the lesson is the reward waiting at the end of your time together in the kitchen. Whether it be a delicious dessert or a satisfying dinner, there is something to look forward to following your Christmas math lesson!
Letting your kids take part in your baking and cooking to teach math does require letting go a little bit more than many moms like to do. However, it’s important that you don’t just make your children figure out the math in the recipes and not help with any other aspect of the cooking or baking.
The most fun part of Christmas math lessons in the kitchen is putting everything together. Mixing the ingredients, taste testing and the sense of accomplishment when the dessert or meal is complete. Be sure that you don’t take away these enjoyable moments from your kids if you want them to come back for future lessons in the kitchen.
My kids have always loved spending time with me while cooking or baking in the kitchen. In fact, I don’t think there is a subject that we haven’t learned about while spending time together in the kitchen.
Christmas Math is Great for Visual Learners
Since both of my children are visual learners, I’ve discovered that the more opportunities that I give them to learn with hands-on resources and activities, the more likely they are to retain what I’m attempting to teach them.
That being said, your visual learners will do especially well with Christmas math in the kitchen. Learning fractions in the kitchen will be much easier than any set of worksheets or textbooks could ever be for your visual learners.
Below you’ll find just a few ideas to help you get started having fun with Christmas math in the kitchen this holiday season!
- Line up the measuring cups and spoons from smallest to largest and vice versa
- Practice adding fractions with measuring cups and spoons
- Add or multiply fractions when doubling recipes
- Practice turning improper fractions into mixed numbers
- Learn about the importance of correct temperature usage
- Discuss why using timers is necessary for baking/cooking
Christmastime is a time to build relationships with your kids and make memories to last a lifetime, take time to incorporate learning into these special moments in simple ways like teaching Christmas math in the kitchen!
How do you make learning math fun at Christmastime?
For more math practice at Christmastime your kids can keep track of their budget, shopping list and more with our Christmas Prep Activity Pack for Kids!
