cleaning, counting, and sortin’ colors with cora

This past weekend had us busier than usual, with my sister getting hitched (woo-hoo!) and Maddy in the wedding. It was awesome, but we’re dragging today. It was nice to have a quiet Cora morning to catch up a bit while Maddy and Owen were at preschool, and she and I had some fun in the kitchen–a little different than before.

• Counting Veggies: This time, we cleaned, counted, and color sorted our favorite vegetables. That’s all we did, really, but she loved it. And I loved that I had our veggies cleaned and ready for the week.

I washed and cut the cauliflower and broccoli, then I put them on paper towels to dry, and as usual, Cora was up at the counter ready to help. I had her “dry” the veggies with another towel as I cut the rest of them. She was happy to help, and we talked about the colors (a work in progress) as we went:

I said, Cora, Is this broccoli green like my shirt, or red, like this apple? . . .
What else can you find in the kitchen that is white like the cauliflower? . . .
Are the baby carrots or are the tomatoes orange?

I put a bunch of veggies in a pile on the counter, and then I set aside a carrot, a tomato, a piece of broccoli. and a piece of cauliflower. I said, Can you put all of the orange carrots together? Now, let’s put the red tomatoes together. . . etc.

Once everything was sorted into like piles, I put one cauliflower out, then two broccoli florets, then three carrots and four tomatoes. I counted as I went and said, Let’s point to the veggies as we count them, and we counted together.

Finally, after we had touched nearly every vegetable we had just cleaned and Cora took tiny bites out of 80% of the carrots (not really), we put them away. Cora sorted the veggies into like bags or containers, and we counted together as we went.

It’s the repeated counting play with numbers that helps children commit number counting to memory, and it’s simple, everyday activities like these that are great opportunities for sneaking in a bit of learning into any day. . .and teaching little ones their way around the kitchen.