Math Maker: Fun With Recipes!

Hello teacher friends!!

Last week was "my math week". Alas, it was my turn to present a math learning activity to our class. Our attention was directed toward ratios, proportions, unit rates, and percentages, which can all be interrelated, however, my activity primarily focused on ratio and proportion. I decided it would be best, just as every lesson in math, to form a connection to real-world contexts so the class would be more intrigued when it finally came time to complete the activity. In doing so, I chose to connect proportionate reasoning to recipes. This excited me!! I do think the demonstration of a recipe, and sorting through the ingredients together as a class would have been a lot more fun, but due to time constraints, I was not able to execute this idea. So I stuck to my other plan. 

Coconut Cake! Photo taken by me.

Each teacher candidate was announced the role of a chef; given a "recipe card" and were instructed to modify the recipe that I provided to serve more people. This would challenge them to ensure all of their ingredients were proportionate. As we know, the proportional relationship between ingredients must be correct in order for the final product to have the right texture, consistency, and of course - to masterfully present a deliciously satisfying taste! For some, this may have been a new concept because I realize not every one in our class are world-class chefs. When I did ask, there were many people who do cook or bake. It would be more interesting to see what strategies the "non-bakers and non-cookers" came up with. Some people decided to increase the ingredients by sticking to the addition of fractions. For the more skilled people in the kitchen, mental math was good enough.

 I did struggle with the idea that this activity may have not been challenging enough, especially for our age group. I feel as though decreasing the amount of ingredients, to an odd number, would have been a little more difficult. Upon receiving feedback from Rebecca, she told me that ratios were not necessarily needed to figure out the answers. A more thoughtful extension, she suggested, would have been to provide a ratio of ingredients (3 parts liquid: 5 parts flour) and tell them that they would use a certain amount of flour. Then, the students would need to decipher the amount of the rest of the required ingredients. 

Perhaps my slight confusion in forming this activity was a direct reflection of my misunderstanding of the curriculum (specific) expectations. It seems to be something most teacher candidates are struggling with, and that is why the second half of our class time was spent matching specific math curriculum expectations to the grade level. Working in partners, we played this unique "matching game".

Photo taken by me.

 My partner and I seemed to get most correct, although we noticed the very close similarities between some expectations. We really appreciated Rebecca encouraging us all to analyze the curriculum more closely in an interactive activity, as I am sure this will benefit us in future lesson planning.

I think the other girls who presented their activities on unit rates and percents did an awesome job, and these activities are surely something I look forward to every week. Especially when I know these are games I could implement into my own math classes one day. Thanks for your wonderful tips, every one!

Until next time,

Have a beau-tea-ful day! :)

Miss Capano