Prayerful Pretzels Proffer Number Practice

Pretzels arranged from 1 to 10.

In a house full of little boys, I have found that having five or six smaller meals throughout the day (or three meals and two or three snacks, as others might call it) is almost a necessity. Thus, inadvertently, food is a daily learning manipulative in our household. Whether extravagant or simple, consider ways to turn your snack time into a learning experience, too.

Joey and Ezra love activities. They get so excited to learn - it's quite heartening. And, when music, food, or science are involved, they're doubly ecstatic! Perhaps your children love learning experiences as much as mine - or perhaps they dread them. Whatever the case, see if you can adapt these lesson ideas for your own experience.

During the Lenten season, my snacks have been

Joey's pretzel concept of three & his 3 card.

much simpler: apple wedges, carrot sticks, ants on a log, etc (all of which Joey shuns) - and, of course, the prayerful pretzel (which Joey doesn't shun). It's fun to find ways to make us of snacks for learning. So, in order to practice number concepts in 1 to 10, I had Joey write and cut out numbers and then use the correct number of pretzels to illustrate the idea. They had so much fun and even my almost-three-year-old Ezra got in on the excitement. Joey matched his personal set of number cards to pretzel displays, created his own arrangements, and organized them from 1 to 10. In fact, this activity was so successful, that we all got creative and started making the pretzels into the numbers themselves. Any time we have a fun activity, Joey loves to find ways to create his name, so those pretzel numbers soon turned into pretzel letters.

Although this activity is geared to preschoolers, there are ways to adapt it to older children. Introduce addition and subtraction into the equation and you can have a hands-on manipulative for mathematics principles. Have your budding spellers practice spelling words with this or other snack foods. Consider the gloriously-cuttable consistency of cheese, for example, or squeeze peanut butter through a plastic bag onto bread "slates." Delve into artistic endeavors by using an array of colorful diced fruit to build a mosaic illustration of whatever historical facts you're currently learning. The ideas really are endless.

From patterns to number practice and other creative learning opportunities, food is the perfect manipulative. Just think outside the box, consider what's in your pantry and fridge, and dare to let learning become a fun-filled experience at the kitchen table, instead of a desk. Take a moment and reply in the comments to give your ideas of incorporating food into learning.