Around the 4th of July, our local surplus store had square red, white & blue reusable ice cubes for sale for about 99 cents a bag. Recently my daughter has discovered that they make a fun manipulative. I just found her lining them up while singing, "I'm learning colors, I'm learning colors." She also loves to stack them; plunk them in a cup; and counting them.  I love finding new uses for everyday items, and apparently she does too!

The other great thing about this activity is that it can be done at the sink and in the kitchen. The more kids spend time in the kitchen, the more comfortable they will be in this space.  The ice cubes are also something that can be frozen, so it is also a great sensory experience too.


What kitchen items do your children gravitate towards?  Have they done any Math play with those items?

I've been unpacking food items to put into my new pantry.  Today I found all of our peanut butter jars. My two year old daughter immediately saw a play opportunity.  She lined them up by colored lid; made patterns (red lid, yellow lid, red lid, blue lid); and of course counted them.  She even asked me about the contents at one point. The reds were creamy, the blue crunchy, and the yellow jar contained sun butter. She even investigated the labels for letters and pictures.  She combined her play with her other new toy, an old sushi mat. Who needs expensive learning toys when you can learn in your pantry!

We just moved about a week ago, and our home is filled with boxes and things here and there. As we start unpacking a little bit at a time we are discovering things we didn't even know that we had. The other day our daughter unearthed a large bag of elastics. A thought started brewing in my brain... Geoboards.  When I stumbled upon ice cube trays from our latest trip to Goodwill I knew we had a plan.

Yesterday I setout the Ice Cube trays and some muffin tins. All four of my kids played for quite awhile with our homemade geoboards.  My 11 year old even added a STEM spin by devising a way to shoot elastics with a muffin tin. He and his older brother took turns aiming and shooting. It's possible my oldest was shot in the eye, but I didn't see anything. Lol!

My son decided to freeze an elastic decorated Ice Cube tray. He gets a kick out of offering guests ice from "his" tray. Nothing like a little ownership in the kitchen.

So if you are looking for a fun Math based activity, look no further than the kitchen and junk drawer. Have fun!

We have been celebrating fun holidays lately.  Today we baked up several batches of Chocolate Chip Cookies for Chocolate Chip Cookie Day.  The cookies were a big hit with my kids. I would like to say we made them from scratch but we used boxed mixes this go round.  We just had to, because we got each box at our local surplus store for 79 cents a box.  Can't pass up that deal!  Plus we still had to mix them up, measure and bake them. So a great hands-on Math activity too!