How to Make Math Fun and Tasty
Sometimes math can be a struggle. It’s one of those subjects that most children either really love or really don’t love! So today I’d like to share some ideas for making math fun with apples! After all, you don’t always have to have expensive manipulatives or fancy curriculum to add new life to math in your homeschool. Sometimes you just need to do something a little different to spark curiosity and make learning fun again!
One delicious way of making math fun with apples is by making these (surprisingly easy!) Apple Tree Cupcakes. Baking is a fun way to get in some math practice with your children without them even realizing it!
Below are some suggested ideas and activities to incorporate math into your baking. Just choose the ideas that fit the ages/grade levels of your children.
- Practice counting by counting out the number of cupcake liners you need. They can also count the number of lollipop sticks, Oreo cookies, red M&Ms, and Tootsie Rolls.
- One-to-one ratio is easy to practice by matching the needed cupcake liners with the spaces in the muffin tin. This skill can be practiced again by matching up lollipop sticks to Oreo cookies.
- Some children may be ready to practice basic multiplication by deciding on and setting aside a specific number of red M&Ms to go on each “apple tree.”
- Even young children (with guidance if needed) can learn about fractions and measurements just by making the cupcakes according to the directions on the package.
- Telling time is another important skill when baking! Help your children learn to make a note of the time when you put the cupcakes into the oven. Then work together to figure out what time you they’ll be done baking. (You can also show them how to set a timer to help make sure you don’t forget to take them out on time! When my kids were little, we used a visual timer similar to this one because it gave them a way to see how much longer they had to wait!)
- This is also a good time to discuss temperature and to show your children how to set the temperature on the oven. You could even (just for fun and to add another element of math) talk about how to convert temperatures from Fahrenheit to Celsius.
- Do simple subtraction problems by giving each child (for example) ten M&Ms. Ask the children how many M&Ms they will have if they eat 5 of the M&Ms. Then let them eat the M&Ms, count again, and check their answers. Have them use the M&Ms they have left to decorate their apple tree cupcakes!
- Do simple addition problems by giving each child two small handfuls of M&Ms. (For very young children, you may want to give each child just two or three per handful.) Do an addition problem with the two amounts. Depending on the age/grade level of your children, you may want to show them how to create a written addition problem or teach them to do mental math. Then either eat the M&Ms or use them to decorate their cupcakes.
- Create a bar graph with the leftover M&Ms! Use the leftover M&Ms (After all, you’re only using the red ones for this baking project!) to chart the number of M&Ms of several different colors.
You Might Also Like These Food-Related Activities!
A Collection of Apple Learning Activities
Health and PE for Homeschoolers (Printable Nutrition Game)
10 Awesome Ways to Make a Cell Model
If you love this idea, you may want to check out these other resources to help make math fun and tasty!!
Great ideas! I have a hard time teaching math, I will definitely be trying these this year withmy littles! 😊
Love these ideas to make something that’s sometimes not too exciting more fun!!!
I love these ideas. I have my ten year old cook with me. We work on fractions that way. He loves cooking and now he is pretty good at fractions. Best part is you can eat it at the end of the lesson😊.
Love this!
Cute project for my K-2 class!!
Fun idea!
I despise math, but this makes math fun! And snacks! Great ideas, thank you!
Baking and math are favorites around here!
Great ideas for the younger set. Any ideas for multiplication. I am struggling to get those facts to stick.
Thanks for the great ideas! My youngest son is really into playing with the uncooked organic mac&cheese number noodles. I had not even thought of integrating treats into math studies!
This looks like a great activity for my two kindergartners. And a good excuse to buy oreos and m&ms!
Great tips! Can’t wait to try some of these ideas with my kids!
So happy I found this article. My daughter struggles a bit with math. I can’t wait to try some of these and make it more fun for her. She is a visual and hands on learner so these will be perfect!
Thank you!
These are awsome ideas. Thankyou. Will have to try some of these this year.
Great ides! I’ve used M&M’s as rewards as well as grapes., but never for actually counting it out. Thanks for all the great articles 😁
Fun ideas! My son loves helping in the kitchen, so we will try these!
Great ideas!
My kids loved anything tasty for Math
Such a cute idea!
I love this! I have one son who loves to cook, so I am always trying to bring more cooking and math into our homeschool.
Thank you for the reminder. I did this with my oldest, but have slacked off with my others.
These are my favorite ways to teach math concepts to elementary students! 💕
I was at a small specialty store last week and found pretzels that are letter shaped. My son loves them so we have been using them to practice spelling and letters. I hadn’t thought to incorporate counting as well!
Great ideas! Love to teach math to my 5 children.
Great ideas! My kids love to eat so incorporating that into their learning is a great idea!
I love the bar graph idea!
Awesome ideas! Definitely going to try some of these for my littles!
Love this looking for help! We home school due to our daughter’s many auto immune problems.
This was such a great article. Will definitely be using these math activities at home to make it more enjoyable.
We learned shapes with twizzlers.
Gum drops and toothpicks
Stick gum drops on the end of toothpicks to make the shapes.
Twizzlers were for the circles.
These are great ideas. Sometimes I forget littles need hands on to see it done better.
Sugary fun 😃
This was very helpful. Thanks for sharing.
These are amazing! I’m definitely saving this article for our tree study. Thanks 🙂
We really struggle with math but my oldest is on large multiplication and division. I just can’t seem to make it fun at all.
Thanks for all the great ideas!!
This is such a fun and rewarding idea!
These go perfect with other projects we’ve been doing this Fall!
Love this!! Edible learning is the best!
That’s a cute project. Sometimes I wish my kids were still little so we could do more of these.
Make them together just for fun and give them to some younger kids you know! 🙂
This is a great idea. Excited to try!
Thank you for this, Wendy. These are such great ideas.
These are adorable! Each fall we do an apple unit. This will be perfect to tie math right into it! Thank you!
my kids have loved this kind of math
Great ideas!
As a pinterest lover this article is a favorite. I love these ideas and learning through playing is probably one of my favorite ways to teach. Thanks for sharing!
Love this! Hope to do it with my girls soon!
Wow! I love these, we will have to try some of these. My girls will love these fun ideas.
Yum! This looks like fun!
I’m gonna have to try this with my daughter. She does not like math at all. I think this will keep her attention. Lol.
I love that there are real life ways to teach math!
I use cooking/baking activities with my math-challenged daughter and it has really made a difference! When she could see why we need math in the real world, it helped her so much. Thanks for these great tips!
My kids all love to help in the kitchen. It is a great way to work on math without them realizing they are actually doing math.
My kids have learned the start of their fractions by baking!! We have a hard time doing most baking projects due to restricted diets but sometimes we just do water measurements but still really fun!!
Great ideas. Food is definitely the way to my sons heart so we will be trying this!
My kind of math!
The bar graph with leftovers is a genius idea, something to do before we eat them!
These are really good ideas! I will for sure be using them with my twins this year, one loves to do math but the other one drags her feet the whole time.
Great ideas! One of my favorite ways to include math in everyday life is with food 😊
wow.. thats very usefull.. thank you so much