I have chosen to homeschool my kids. We have a chosen homeschooling curriculum that we enjoy. Still, we like to take a few steps off the beaten path and use food to teach our children their basic math facts. I have developed some home school lessons. The activities I am about to describe will work for any child learning or reviewing their basic math concepts regardless of where they get their education.

In kindergarten, I usually buy one or more of the following to teach addition and subtraction: Cheerios, M&Ms, chocolate chips, or some other small food that the child I am teaching really enjoys. The food is then used as a hands-on manipulative. For instance, if we were adding 2 + 3, I might get out 2 raisins and 3 chocolate chips. Before the lesson starts, we set a goal for the number of lessons we are going to accomplish that day. When we reach our goal, it is time to eat whatever food we used for the lesson.

My favorite lesson for kindergarten is subtraction. I love to watch their faces when find out that they get to eat after each math problem is solved. An example would be 3 - 2, so they would get to eat three.

Multiplication and division can be done with edible manipulatives, too. Three rows of four M&Ms makes 3 * 4 more interesting than drawing dots. Or, the student could receive 12 Skittles and be instructed to divide them into equal groups. They could come up with 2 groups of 6, 6 groups of 2, 3 groups of 4, 4 groups of 3.

When it is time to learn fractions, it is time to order some pizza. If we are learning about thirds, sixths, or ninths, we start off by cutting in thirds. For sixths, we cut each third in half. For ninths, we cut each slice into thirds again. This method can be done with halves, fourths, etc.

There are also lessons on volume. I have pitchers that measure both quarts and liters. I start off by measuring out one cup of water with a little bit of food coloring or I will use juice since the colored liquid makes it easier to see how much liquid is in the container. This is poured into a two cup measuring cup. Another cup of liquid is added. Then, we add a sticky note to label it "pint."

There are two ways to go about teaching kids about quarts. The first way is to have the kids measure out a pint twice and dump the liquid into the quart sized pitcher. The second way is to have the pint sized container filled using the method above and place the quart sized pitcher next to the pint. Then, have the student use a one cup measuring cup to fill the quart. Similar procedures would be used for teaching volume in the metric system.

Another favorite of mine is using a fun-sized or larger package of Skittles or M&Ms to teach probability. Procedure: the package is opened, the colors sorted and counted, and create a graph to find out which color there was represented the most. If the student is advanced enough for percentages, I have them figure out what percent of the package was blue. I do the same for the rest of the colors.

There are many other ways to teach children their basic concepts using food. It adds more excitement to their lessons. Since it is out of the ordinary, there is a higher retention rate because they remember how much fun they had that on the day they learned the concept. Both home schooled kids as well as kids who go to regular school can do these or similar activities after school or during their summer breaks to retain what they learned during the prior school year.