Using Breakfast Cereal & Kids Activities to Teach Children

One thing that I learned from teaching my young children at home is that it is so much easier to give them a lesson when they don’t realize that you are teaching them.

And, how do you do this? Through activities that are fun for kids!!

Just fill many of your everyday interactions that you have with your children with the perfect combination of education and family fun. Education and family fun is the perfect recipe for bringing up a smart child.

Let’s take breakfast for instance… Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. But, did you know that using your children’s favorite kids cereal you can teach them Math, Science, colors and even potty training? It’s true.

And, the best part? They won’t even realize that you are giving them a lesson.

12 Fun Kids Activities using Breakfast Cereal

Learning Colors with Kids Cereal

The more often you point out colors to your children the easier it is for them to learn them. Point out colors throughout the day as you are doing different activities with your child. Tootie Fruities are the perfect cereal for teaching your children their colors. Primary colors are the easiest for children to pick up and Tootie Fruities has those colors covered. Here are a few ideas on using kids cereal to aid your child in learning colors…

• Christmas Tree Garland – Since the Christmas Season is upon us why not string colorful Tootie Fruities cereal on a string to use as Garland on the Christmas Tree. With each cereal piece your child adds to the string announce the color. After a while begin asking your child what color he is adding & see if he can answer himself. This is a super fun and educational seasonal activity.
• Sorting – Sort the cereal by colors. Make a piles of yellow, blue, red, green, etc.
• Colorful Rainbow – Make a Colorful rainbow and have your child fill in the rainbow with their colorful cereal pieces… matching the colors of the cereal to the colors of the rainbow. For a craft add glue to each cereal piece to make the artwork permanent. Make sure to hang up their tasty artwork for all to see.
• Color with Cereal – Tear out a page from a coloring book or print off a coloring page and have your child use the Tootie Fruities to fill in the picture instead of crayons. For example, use the green cereal pieces for the leaves on a tree & the yellow cereal pieces for the sun. Make sure to ask your child why they chose those specific colors for their coloring page. Talking about their color choices can help reinforce the learning experience… not to mention the bonding time.

Math Activities using Kids Cereal

Parents & teachers have been using manipulatives for years to teach their children math. Why not use Cereal as a manipulative? Using kids cereal to put together math activities for your children can be a great tool to aid in teaching your children counting, patterns, adding & subtracting…. plus the activities are FUN!! Here are some ideas of math activities using kids cereal.

• Counting – Using kids cereal is a great way to teach your child how to count. Sit your child down at the table and lay out 10 pieces of cereal in front of her. Point out each piece and say the number. Go all the way from 1 through 10. Next have your child point at the cereal pieces and count along with her. If you feel she is ready see if she can point at each piece and count from 1 to 10 herself. Let her eat the 10 pieces of cereal as her reward for working so hard.
• Patterns – This would be another fun activity to use the multi-colored Tootie Fruities for. Place a pattern in front of the child using the different colored cereal. Make a pattern of let’s say 2 reds, 3 blues, 2 reds, 3 blues, 2 reds, and 3 blues. Place a pile of extra cereal pieces next to the pattern and see if you child can continue that same pattern. Create another pattern and see if he can finish that one.
• Adding – Using breakfast cereal is a great way to teach your child addition. As an example, place 4 cereal pieces down on the table. Ask your child to count the pieces of cereal. Depending on the child’s age count the pieces along with her. Now, say to your child, “What happens when we add 3 pieces of cereal?” Help your child count out the 3 pieces of cereal as you place them on the table next to the other 4 pieces of cereal. Now, have your child count all the cereal pieces together and give you the total. Give your child lots of praise after this activity. This is just the beginning… your child will use addition the rest of her life!!
• Subtracting – After you have been teaching your child addition for a couple of weeks successfully you can begin adding subtraction activities to your lessons. Grab a handful of their favorite Kids Cereal as a manipulative and using the same basic rules as the addition lesson above lay cereal pieces on the table in front of your child. For this example place 6 cereal pieces in front of the child. Have your child point and count out the 6 pieces of cereal. Now ask your child to take away 3 of the cereal pieces. (Use the phrase “take away”. Your child will not understand minus or subtract for quite a while). After your child removes 3 pieces ask him to count out the remaining pieces. Did he get the answer correct?

Child Potty Training using Kids Cereal

Anyone that has ever had to struggle through the challenges of potty training a child knows that there is a method to the madness of it all. However, every child has a different methodology of what will work for them. Here are a couple potty training tips using Kids Cereal that can help.

• Rewarding – Cereal can be used to reward your child for going on the potty. What is really great about using kids cereal to reward your child for going on the potty is that it is healthy. If you use candy to reward your child for going on the potty she will be ingesting a lot of sugar with each reward. If your child goes to the bathroom every hour or two throughout the day that is a lot of added sugar and calories to her diet. This wouldn’t be good for your child. However, if you use cereal to reward your child she not only gets a healthy treat, but something totally yummy!!
• Aim – For any one who has had a little boy or babysat a little boy you probably know that their aim when potty training is anything but perfect. A little boy’s focus isn’t quite there… instead of being focused on what they are doing (peeing in the potty) they are looking around the room and most probably making quite the big boy mess. But, if they had something to aim at it would help your big boy keep their focus and probably keep your bathroom much cleaner. This potty training tip is simple… grab a few round cereal pieces, Scooters would be perfect, and throw them in the toilet right before your son is ready to use the potty. Have him aim for the cereal inside the toilet while he goes potty. It will give him something to aim at & he will find it so much fun!! This little trick will make it easier to get him to want to try and pee in the potty the next time he needs to go.

Science Activities using Kids Cereal

Yes, there are even a few Science Activities that use Kids Cereal to aid in the learning experience.

• Environment – One of the great things about Malt-O-Meal Cereals is the fact that they use 75% less packaging than other cereals. While pouring your child their breakfast cereal this is a great time to point out that caring about the environment is so important for the sake of our future. Using products that are environmentally friendly is so important. Just as it is important to recycle it is important to use as little packaging as possible. It is never too early to begin teaching your children to take care of our planet.
• Mixing materials / Recipe building – Mixing ingredients teaches your child what happens when you put together two different items. Cooking is a form of science and children LOVE cooking with their parents. Using cereal to mix and build recipes is a fun activity for children. Plus, at the end of the activity they can eat their project. Why not help your child make their very own trail mix with their favorite cereal, raisins and M&M’s. Begin the project with the items apart and show your child the individual ingredients. Have the child taste each ingredient one at a time. Now, help your child mix the ingredients in a bowl. Let you child look at the beauty of their treat together in a bowl. When your child is ready let him taste his home-made treat and ask him what the ingredients taste liked mixed together? “Does it taste different than when the ingredients were separate?” “Is the texture different than when the ingredients were separate?” Have him explain why.

It is proven that using fun activities to teach your children can be extremely effective. Young children have a very difficult time sitting still long enough for regular lessons. However, if they are taught in a way that they don’t even realize is a lesson, let’s say through fun activities like the cereal activities I mentioned above, you will have better success. Use anytime during the day as a learning experience for your child. They love to learn, they love to experience new things and bottom line…. they love spending quality time with you.

What better way to teach your children than to do it in a fun and yummy way.

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This entry was posted on Monday, December 22nd, 2008 at 3:22 pm and is filed under Kids Activities, Kids Cereal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.