May 15 is National Chocolate Chip Day! What a fun thing to celebrate! And we know our kids would love to celebrate chocolate chips, right? But how does one celebrate the chocolate chip? Well, we have a few ideas for you and your kids. While we may mostly be munching on chocolate chips, we might as well try to learn a few things with them too. So here are a few fun ways to help your preschooler learn with chocolate chips.
We know where this will end
Since we know we cannot play and learn with chocolate chips without eating them, let’s plan on how we will eat our chocolate chips. Will we eat as we go? That might end up being a lot of chocolate chips, depending on what activities you choose. Or will we make something with chocolate chips at the end? Maybe our chocolate chip treat will be part of our activities. No matter what way you choose to eat your chocolate chips, decide on a plan before you start so that your kids know when they can munch away.
Learning activities with chocolate chips
Of course, the easiest thing to do with little objects is to work on our counting and math skills. And why not? These are important skills, and it’s more fun to practice with treats. So let’s think about some ways to help your preschooler learn with chocolate chips.
Understanding quantities
It’s so helpful for our kids to know how much a number actually is before they learn the symbols for those numbers. For example, when learning the number 1, we can place 1 popsicle stick on a table, and tell our child that this is 1 stick. Then place a block on the table, and again tell them that this is 1 block. Continue with various items, including your fingers, and then ask your child to place one item on the table or to hold up 1 finger. When they can do this correctly and consistently, we can move on to 2 with the same process. And we can keep going up to 5.
After 5, it’s easier to think about numbers as 5 and 1 more for 6, 5 and 2 more for 7, and so on. And this works well since we have 5 fingers on each hand. And it coordinates with how our brains see quantities, which we will talk about next.
Subitizing
Did you know that our brains can see the number of objects in a group as long as there are 5 or fewer items? This is called subitizing. When we subitize, we don’t count. We just see that there are 2 items or 5 items. Test this out with your kids, family, or friends by placing various numbers of chocolate chips on a table. Then ask “How many chocolate chips are there?” You’ll see that they will answer immediately when there are 5 or fewer, but they will have to count if there are more than 5.
If your child knows their quantities up to 5, you can do this activity to practice their ability to subitize quickly. When kids are used to seeing the quantity of the numbers 1-5, it helps them with the mental math skills they will need to move those quantities around with mathematical operations (adding, subtracting, etc.).
Counting
Once your kids understand quantities, counting will make a lot more sense. And there are all kinds of fun ways to count chocolate chips. If you need more ideas, just do a search online, and you will find all that you need. Counting grids are a great way to count chocolate chips. You can find some free printable counting grids here. These are great for kids to place chocolate chips into their spots as they count the next number. And how much fun will your little one have with these adorable chocolate chip grids? Counting grids also require some work on fine motor skills as our kids place the chocolate chips into the right squares.
For more practice, check out our Mother Goose Club “Count with Me” song! If you don’t have a My Signing Time subscription, you can try one out with a 14-day free trial. And with your counting, you could learn the sign for count in our free Signing Time Dictionary!
Once your child finishes all this brain work with chocolate chips, be sure to have some fun eating those chocolate chips! And if there’s some brain space left, you could learn some signs to go along with your chocolate activities, like the sign for brown or cookie or stove or eat.
How will you help your preschooler learn with chocolate chips? Let us know! We love to see your kids signing and learning!