The pie comes with 60 pieces of fruit in 5 different colours, and everything is designed to be sturdy and hopefully long-lasting even with rough usage from little hands. The set comes with three double-sided cards that can be used as a starting point for games. Two sides show the fruits and their colours; two sides include numbers from 1-10, one side shows the shapes of colourless fruit and the last side shows a colour wheel with the five fruit colours. These cards can be paired together, or used independently, as instruction cards to help children sort the fruit into groups and categories. To make it slightly easier for younger children the dividers in the pie can be removed and the cards placed at the bottom of the pie as a sorting guide. For a little extra fun, you could easily turn the circular cards into spinners to randomise the choice of activity.

The fruit can be adapted for use in virtually any kind of counting game outside of the set activities that the cards suggest. Their bright colour and easy to use, but hard to lose, size make them ideal for use in any maths activity that requires the manipulation of physical objects.

The tweezers that come with the set are an excellent way for young children to practice their fine motor skills. Using the tweezers to pick up and move the fruit requires a certain amount of dexterity and concentration which will challenge younger children and provide an opportunity for older children to solidify their skills. The movements can also be helpful for developing pre-writing skills for children who are at that stage.

As well as all of the traditionally educational uses of the pie, it is excellent for pretend cooking play. Kids can ‘make’ all sorts of pie varieties for friends and family. It could even lead to some real cooking lessons as most basic pies aren’t too tricky for a little kid to make with a bit of adult supervision. This recipe over at Bake Play Smile has a bunch of easy adaptations built into the recipe depending on the skill of your little ones and the time you can dedicate to the project.