Mealtime activities - Lunch

Mealtime activities to make meals fun, and develop your child’s understanding of numeracy as well.  

Whether or not you’ve tried the breakfast activities, have a crack at these lunchtime activities for your preschooler. Remember to keep things fun, vary the activities and to

Firstly, fractions! So many people have a negative image of fractions, often because they struggled with them themselves at school. However, if you show your child everyday examples of fractions then their understanding will grow. When you cut up your child’s sandwiches, show them how different fractions relate to each other. For example, if you’ve cut the sandwich into four squares, say ‘if we’ve got two quarters, then it’s the same as a half of the whole sandwich, and four quarters make up a whole’. Have a play around. If you and your child are sharing lunch, or sharing between siblings/ friends say things like ‘if Matthew has had four half sandwiches, then how many sandwiches has he had all together?’  

Secondly, tessellating shapes. Tessellating shapes are shapes which fit together neatly with no spaces. If you have biscuits for lunch/ snack, look at the shape. Are they circles, or squares, or rectangles, or ovals, or diamonds, or teddy shaped, or stars, or something else? Challenge your child to lay them out like puzzle pieces and see if s/he can arrange them without gaps. For some shapes (like squares, rectangles etc) your child will be able to do this, for others (ovals, tiny teddies) your child won’t. Talk about what shape you would need to fit in the gap. Try different shaped biscuits each day, and also try combinations of different shapes (for example, squares and ovals – do they work?) Don’t forget to eat the biscuits at the end!  

Thirdly, have a go at addition to ten. Give your child ten carrot sticks/ biscuits/ sultanas/ cheese cubes/ apple slices etc. Count them. Then split them into groups with add up to ten. Have one group with 1, and the other with 9. Then try 2 and 8. Continue through 7 + 3, 6 + 4, 5 + 5, then back down again. Don’t forget 10 + 0. Remembering the pairs of numbers which add up to ten is a great skill, which will help your child with mental arithmetic for many years. It is useful, not just for adding to ten, but also for adding number close to ten. (For example, 7 + 4 = ***, the thinking goes like: 7 + 3 is 10, but 4 is one more than 3 so the answer must be one more than 10, so the answer must be 11!)   Then your child can pop them into his/ her mouth, counting down as s/he goes!

If you don’t have the time opportunity to do this at lunchtime every day, then don’t stress. As with the breakfast activities, just do it when you get a chance. What about lunch on weekends, or maybe afternoon tea? Interacting with your child over these activities will make meal time fun, is a great learning experience and both of you will relish the bonding time.  

Good luck, and let me know how you go! Coming up next at Café ‘d mathematics – Dinner!