After seeing what a hit our recent play dough subtraction smash activity was, I immediately starting thinking of other fun, hands-on activities I could provide Miss G with to foster her love of exploring numbers {and subtraction in particular}. I’m fairly certain the play dough activity was so well-liked because of the smashing aspect, so I wanted something just as unique and fun. Simply taking manipulatives away from a pile was not going to cut it. {Well, not for me at least.} I racked my brain for interesting ways to take things away, until I thought of eating! G loves all sorts of healthy foods and is pretty much constantly hungry currently {hello, growth spurt!}, so snack subtraction of some sort was a perfect fit.
I knew I wanted some type of snack that was small and easy to eat, but I also wanted it to be something I didn’t mind her eating lots of, so berries it was! She loves them and since they’re ridiculously expensive here in Kuwait, they make for a nice treat.
While we could have just played on a tray like we did for our play dough subtraction smash game, I decided that a berry bush cut out of card stock would be a fun touch. Then Grae could pretend she was plucking the berries off the bush and popping them into her mouth like she’d do back home in Canada {my poor desert-dwelling, nature deprived child}.
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In order to make the card stock bush ‘berry juice proof’, I simple used clear contact paper to adhere it directly onto our tray, but you could just as easily put yours in a plastic page protector or zip-close bag, or you could even laminate it if you felt you’d get enough use out of it. Just for fun, I placed our berries into the little plastic pails we used for our ‘build a sandcastle’ play dough kits {yes, our berry bush grows both raspberries and blueberries!}, and then I grabbed the subtraction cards we’d used for our play dough smash.
Grae knew exactly what do to and wasted no time getting started! The process was pretty much identical to that of our last subtraction activity, only this time instead of smashing play dough balls, she got to eat berries.
First, she’d flip over a subtraction card and tell me the question, then she’d take away the appropriate number of berries and gobble them up before telling me how many were left.
This process went on….
And on…
And on.
And she absolutely loved it.
Her favourite part however? This final question….
And you’d better believe that she attempted to shove all five of those raspberries in her mouth, before {thankfully} realizing that it was probably not her best plan.
Here’s a peek of her amidst our subtraction fun. Inevitably, the moment she knows I’m taking a video, her little squeaky, cutesy voice comes out, but the highlight?! ‘Five eat three.’ HAH!!
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