Flip 3 Pancakes with 1 Spatula Review

"The kitchen is a living laboratory, demanding curiosity. Cups of water and corn syrup can be measured, heated, and transformed into one pound of hard candy. The circular circumference of a pizza can be measured, baked, and cut into fractional parts. Cylinders and rectangular prisms sit comfortably on the pantry shelf waiting to be sorted, counted, and stacked in geometric sculpture. Children love to experience and experiment with these math wonders, yet adults often scoot children from the kitchen because it is easier to plan, process, and prepare without the help of little hands. However, when a child's desire to help is tapped, math skills and life skills can be taught and will be remembered because of the natural inquisitiveness which saturates the kitchen. Children love the kitchen, a perfect place to be immersed in math." 
--Cheryl Bastian, author and homeschooling mom of six

Flip 3 Pancakes with 1 Spatula by Cheryl Bastian is book filled with hands-on learning ideas for teaching math without a textbook. It's a handbook to teach to the heart of your child, who most likely LOVES your kitchen and is constantly asking if he can "help." Cooking is fun. Math can be learned by cooking with mom in the kitchen. Ergo, learning math can be fun. That sounds logical to me!

 You will love this book! Set up like a cookbook, it is divided into the following categories: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, Snacks & Desserts, and Holidays & Celebrations. Each page contains a complete math lesson set up unit study style with a yummy recipe. You start out by reading one or two picture books. After gathering the needed materials listed on the page, the math lesson takes place while you are cooking. There are also Add Ons. The Ad Ons include additional math lessons, social studies activities, more books to read, science projects, writing or language assignments, and art projects. All are easy and fun!

There is a table setting symbol in the upper left hand corner of each lesson that indicates the math lesson level. One table setting symbol represents pre-number skills, two table setting symbols represent number skills, and three table setting symbols represent computations and equations (higher level thinking skills). This means that you can use these lessons for several years and/or for several children of different age levels. Pre-number skills include comparing, classifying, seriation, patterning, and geometry. Number skills include counting, measurement, graphing, numeration, place value, and estimation.

Cheryl loves books as much as I do and you will appreciate the carefully chosen picture book titles to read aloud before each math activity. Don't skip this part. . .reading impacts your children so effectively, so if you can't find the books Cheryl recommends, then look for similar books on the same topic.

Let's look at a lesson, Just in Time (Rice Cake Clock), together. There are three lovely books to read beforehand: The Grouchy Lady Bug by Eric Carle, It's About Time by Stuart J. Murphy, and Time to... by Bill McMillan. The materials needed are rice cakes, peanut butter, raisins, thin pretzel sticks, a knife (with adult supervision), and a plate. (Those things are all in my kitchen right now!) The math lesson is a discussion of the difference between analog clocks (with hands) and digital clocks. Then you make a clock using raisins to represent the numbers and pretzels for the hands. There are several more books listed, an art project (making your own clock out of a paper plate), and practice telling time with a clock with moveable hands. That lessons sounds simple to me!

Here's a look at a completely different lesson, Apple of My Eye (Apple Slices), that teaches fractions, symmetry, and graphing. Again, we start out reading. This time, we read Chicka, Chicka, 1, 2, 3, by Bill Martin and Apple Fractions by Jerry Pallotta. The materials needed are three different kinds of apples (red, green, and yellow), a knife for mom, and an apple slicer. The lessons includes cutting the apple in half to learn about symmetry, slicing apples into equal parts to learn about fractions, and family taste tests, providing data for a graph. Ad Ons include visiting an apple orchard to pick apples, going on a walk to find symmetry, making a list of words that begin with a, making a blotto butterfly, visiting a butterfly garden, and reading several additional books.

What fun each lesson is! This book can work as a math curriculum for preschool or kindergarten or early elementary age children or a great supplement for first or second graders. Cheryl is also the author of several other books, You Have to Read This One:  Raising a Contagious Reader, Celebrate High School, and You Have to Read These:  Companion  Study for You Have to Read These.

As we are about to begin the new school year, keep in mind that homeschooling is a lifestyle of learning. Some of us need more lifestyle and less rigid academics. If you are looking for a way to enjoy your child and learn math at the same time, I highly recommend this book!