Set Out Your “tools”

The child/ren sit around the table and are invited to play with the utensils any way they want to. When they have finished this "free exploring" ask them to put all the things together that belong together.

Assemble the graduated things in order. Elicit something about using numbers to label them. Then

point out that, though they are very hard to see, there are already numbers written on them. What are all these tools for? Measuring and cooking. "I want to make a cake. The directions say to use 1 cup of water. Which cup will I use? Look at how different they are!" Show the child/ren how a small cup of water poured into a large cup looks like a half a cup. "What shall we do?" If we use this cup the amount will be very different from the amount of this cup. What can we do? Use a standard cooking cup. Discuss the word “Standard” These are the standard cups that all people who cook all over the world, use. Let's look at the numbers on them...250ml (8oz). That is the standard for cooking. Everybody uses this one. All recipes expect you to use this one. You can drink your coffee/tea/Milo out of any sized cup, but if you want to bake a cake - you must use a 250 ml (8oz) cup. What if you don't have one? Can you use anything else? Elicit something smaller that can be used multiple times, like a half cup. Show how two half cu

ps make a whole cup. "What about something much smaller? What about this?" (Hold up an 1/8th teaspoon) "How many of these would make a cup?" Get all the child/ren to predict. Then ask child to fill the cup with the spoon from a basin of water while counting. So we can use a smaller measure, but why don’t we? It takes too long. What can we use this little spoon for then? Salt or pepper or something like that. Something we don’t use in a large amount.

Small children do not need to learn fractions, but the concept that a lot of little things make a big thing is worth learning...and they think it is fun, too.