Ants on a Log: A Counting Recipe at Home

There is no better way to practice counting than with a snack your child actually wants to eat. Ants on a Log is simple enough for a preschooler to make almost entirely on their own, and every step — spreading, placing, counting, sharing — is a chance to work with numbers. If your child can count to ten, they are ready.

What you need

• 4 stalks of celery, washed
• Peanut butter or sunflower seed butter
• A small bowl of raisins (about 1/4 cup)
• A butter knife or spreader
• A plate or cutting board

The recipe

Part 1: Make the logs

Help your child cut each celery stalk in half (or do this step yourself for younger children). That gives you 8 short logs. Let your child spread peanut butter or sunflower butter inside each one.

How many logs do we have? Let's count them together. If we eat one right now, how many would be left?

Part 2: Count the ants

Now comes the best part. Ask your child to place exactly 5 raisins on each log. Encourage them to touch each raisin as they count it — that one-to-one matching is the whole point.

Can you put exactly 5 raisins on this log? Count them out loud so I can hear. Now do the next one — still 5.

Once four logs are loaded, stop and ask: You made 4 logs with 5 raisins each. How many raisins is that altogether? Younger kids can touch-count every raisin across all four logs. Older kids might skip-count: 5, 10, 15, 20.

Part 3: Share the logs

Time to practice subtraction without calling it that. Ask your child to give 2 logs to a sibling, a parent, or a stuffed animal sitting at the table.

You had 4 logs. You gave away 2. How many do you have now? How many raisins are on the logs you kept?

If there is no one to share with, set 2 logs on a separate plate for later. The math works either way.

Part 4: Change the recipe

Make the remaining 4 logs, but this time change the number. Ask your child to put 7 raisins on each log instead of 5.

This time, put 7 raisins on each log. Do you think you will need more raisins or fewer raisins than last time? Let's find out. How many raisins total now?

Let them figure it out however they want — counting one by one, skip-counting by sevens, or just making a good guess first and then checking.

Make it again

Ants on a Log is a perfect everyday snack, and you can squeeze new math out of it each time.

• Change the numbers. Try 3 raisins per log one day and 10 the next. Ask which day used more.
• Swap the toppings. Use chocolate chips, sunflower seeds, or dried cranberries. Do the same number of chocolate chips look like the same number of raisins?
• Keep a weekly tally. Each time your child makes this snack, record how many raisins they used. At the end of the week, add up the total together.

Discussion questions

1. If you made 3 logs with 6 raisins on each, how many raisins would you need?
2. Which is more — 4 logs with 5 raisins each, or 2 logs with 10 raisins each? How do you know?
3. If your friend does not like raisins, what would you put on top instead? How many would you use?
4. What is the most raisins you could fit on one log? How would you figure that out?

What they are learning

Every time your child places one raisin and says one number, they are strengthening one-to-one correspondence — the understanding that each object gets exactly one count. When they figure out how many raisins are on four logs without recounting from the beginning, they are skip-counting, which is the foundation of multiplication. And when they give logs away and figure out how many are left, they are doing subtraction through sharing. All of that from a snack that takes five minutes to make.