Can Cooking Make Math Fun? Tips and Tools for Teaching Math Through Cooking

[cmdtrgd]

I am freaking out a little bit here. I was approached by ICTM (Idaho Council of Teachers of Mathematics) in JUNE about presenting at their October 4-5 conference and possibly having a booth. I asked in JUNE about waiving the booth fee if I presented. I never heard back. THIS MORNING I got an email:

Please check the attached schedule and session descriptions. There
have been several changes. I need to know if everything is fine. I
plan to take this to the printer on Saturday morning.

Thank you again for agreeing to speak at the conference this fall.
Your registration has been completed for you, please do pick up your
name badge and materials when you arrive at the conference in Nampa.

Ummmm....k. That is NEXT WEEK and I haven't heard from you guys since JUNE!!! Plus, the booth form was due September 20th! UGH! So, I am dealing with the frustrating part, I need everyone's help to put together a 45 minute presentation on Teaching Math through Cooking and showing off our tools. Here's what I have:

*able to show correlation of different types of measurements through our Measure All Cup, Easy Adjustable Measuring Cup and Spoon.
*Doubling, halfing, etc. recipes
*???

HELP!

 

[ChefBeckyD]

Ummm, wow! If I had to do a "Teaching Math thru Cooking" workshop, I would work on fractions through ingredient measurements, and how to double and half ingredients to teach addition and subtraction......
Not sure I'm much help.......

 

[cmdtrgd]

Yeah, the hard part is that I have 45 minutes to fill. They do have me listed as a PC person, so I can show our products and talk about why they are better than stuff you can get at Wally World.

 

[ChefBeckyD]

I would show everything you can use to measure.....oh and talk about the difference between liquid measure and dry measure - would that be math? You know - ounces and weight and all that?
SS bowls
Batter Bowls
Easy Read Cups
Measure Mix and Pour
Measure All
Prep Bowls
Adjustable Measuring Spoons.......

 

[jlevernier]

Don't forget to talk at least a few minutes about how owning your own business helps with math. Figuring out the receipts, figuring the commission, how much more to earn for incentive trips, etc.

You could always end with it, "While cooking teaches you basic addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, owning your own Pampered Chef business teaches you so much MORE about math; and the reason math is important. . . ."

--Jenny L

 

[cmdtrgd]

That's a good tie in, but I don't know how that would help to learn how to teach math to their students.

 

[cmdtrgd]

Ooooh....unless you had them pretend they were consultants and they had to figure out how many shows they needed in order to make X amount of money...

 

[jlevernier]

Are you supposed to be giving them a lesson on how to teach math to their students through cooking?

--Jenny L

 

[chefann]

How about nutrients? If one serving of a recipe has X calories and it makes Y servings, how many calories are in the total recipe? What if the cook serves 2 extra people from it?Use the nutrition info to create word problems. Same with ingredients.

 

[kdawn1124]

I googled, "math and cooking" and found some interesting things. Here is some info from one fo the sites.

Cooking With Math

Math is in every kitchen, on every recipe card, and at each holiday gathering. The mathematics of cooking often goes unnoticed, but in reality, there is a large quantity of math skills involved in cooking and baking.

Conversions

Most ranges have dials that display the cooking temperature of the oven. In North America, most of these temperatures are written in Fahrenheit and usually are in increments of 25°. In Canada, recipe and oven temperatures are often presented in degrees Celsius. It is important then to understand how to convert a Fahrenheit temperature to an appropriate Celsius temperature. For example, let’s say your oven displays Fahrenheit temperatures with 50° increments. Your recipe tells you to bake your dish at 220°C. What temperature do you turn your oven to? Well, you will need to convert 220°C to a Fahrenheit measurement.


To make sure you do not over bake the cookies, you will need to set the oven to 428°F. But remember, your oven only displays the temperature in 50° increments, so you must estimate on the dial where 428°F is, somewhere between 400°F and 450°F. The relationship between celsius and fahrenheit is a linear function:



We also use conversions when we bake or cook to convert sizes and amounts. Many recipes are written in imperial units (teaspoon, tablespoons, and cups). Some newer recipes and measuring devices in Canada are labeled in metric units, such as milliliters (mL). If the recipe calls for ½ cup of butter and your measuring equipment is labeled in mL, how will you know which measurement to use? We can apply this conversion formula: 1 cup = 237mL. This means that ½ cup = 118.5mL. Again, this exact measurement is probably not on the measuring cup. It is probably closest to 125mL, so we will again have to estimate.

Making Enough

Most recipes give guidelines as to how much a single batch will produce. But what if you want more? It seems too time consuming to mix up another batch. What if the recipe makes only one dozen cupcakes and you need three dozen? Clearly, three dozen is three times more than 1 dozen, so we can multiply all the ingredients by three to make a larger batch. It is also important to understand how to multiply fractions. If the cupcake recipe calls for ¾ cup of milk and we want to triple it, we need to know that:


So, we will need 2 and 1/4 cups of milk to make three dozen cupcakes.

This knowledge of fractions is also helpful when we need to make our batch smaller. For example, recipe guidelines approximate that each batch will yield 6 dozen cookies. But, my family is small and I only want 2 dozen cookies. First, we need to see the relationship between 2 and 6. We can see that 2 dozen is one third (1/3) of 6 dozen because 2 x 3 = 6. That means that in order to make only 2 dozen cookies, we will need to use one third of each ingredient. So, if the recipe asks for 2 teaspoons of baking powder, we will only need 2/3 of a teaspoon, since



If we do not have a measuring spoon that is equal to 2/3 teaspoon, we may need to use 1/3 twice, or estimate using ¼.

When recipes indicate how much a particular batch will make, they give a general amount of food. If we are cooking for a group, we need to estimate how much each person will eat and make appropriate amounts of the particular item. For example, if a package of spaghetti makes 1L of cooked spaghetti, will we have enough to feed six people with one package? If not, how much of a second package will we have to use? First, we need to estimate how much each person will eat. We can guess that each person will eat 1 cup of spaghetti, which is 237mL. For convenience sake, we can round this to 250mL. That means that six people will eat 1500mL of spaghetti. If 1L=1000mL, we know that we will need to make one whole package, plus half of the second package to ensure that everyone has enough to eat.

Being Creative

Sometimes, we may not have all the ingredients to make a recipe, but we may have something we can fittingly substitute. How does this affect the measurement amounts in the recipe? For example, let’s imagine we are making Rice Krispie cake. The recipe calls for 32 large marshmallows, but we only have miniature marshmallows. We can still use the small marshmallows, but we will need to estimate how many mini marshmallows would make one large marshmallow, and multiply that number by 32.

What if you want to spice up your chocolate chip cookies by adding almonds and coconut? Your recipe calls for 2 cups of chocolate chips, but you want to add 1/3 cup of almonds and 1/6 cup of coconut. How much chocolate chips do you still have to add? Well, we simply need to subtract, using fractions.



We still need to add 1 and ½ cups of chocolate chips. It is important to remember that when adding and subtracting fractions, we need to use a common denominator.


Weight

Weight often affects cooking time. Consider the following hypothetical situation: we are cooking an 8 pound turkey for Christmas dinner. If the turkey needs to thaw in the refrigerator for 24 hours, per 5 pounds, we need to take the turkey out of the freezer in advance. We can use a proportional relation to help us decide how early to thaw the turkey.



The above proportion reads as follows: 5 pounds is to 24 hours as 8 pounds is to x hours. By cross-multiplying and dividing, we can find an answer of 38.4 hours, which is the solution for x.
If we are instructed to cook the turkey for 20 minutes per pound, how long do we need to cook the turkey? Well, 20 minutes per pound for 8 pounds is 20 x 8 = 160 minutes. And, 160 minutes is two hours and 40 minutes. If we only knew the weight of our turkey in kilograms, we would need another conversion formula (kilograms to pounds) to find the weight of the turkey in pounds first, and then apply the recommendations.


Cost

We also use math when cooking and baking to estimate the cost of a certain dish. We can understand that cheesecake is more expensive to make than a batch of cookies, particularly when people buy ingredients such as flour, sugar, and butter in bulk and cream cheese is more expensive. When comparing recipes, it may be beneficial to estimate the cost of each recipe.

Mathematical skills are used quite frequently when baking and cooking. It can be very helpful to understand how math affects the quality of culinary in order to make the most delicious meals and treats.

 

[adventurechef]

There's a file call "Educational Baking", I will try to link it. The flyer goes over the learning while baking and cooking. I used this flyer for a kids/baby fair.

http://www.chefsuccess.com/attachme...lts-show-sorry-if-long-educational-baking.doc

Hope that helps, Linda

 

[chefanne]

I Googled ‘Teaching Math through Cooking’ and found some interesting websites.Maybe start with an intro about how important accuracy is in cooking. Give some examples and get them laughing and involved. Like “do you remember some of your cooking goofs?” For me, I remember one time when my friend measured ¼ cup of baking soda instead of ¼ tsp for a batch of cookies. YUK! Or ask them if the top ever fell off of the salt or pepper? Then launch into the talk.Here are some links to check out:Try Dole’s 5 A Day website Dole 5 A Day - We make 5 A Day fun!
It has: Math: Problems, Measuring, Cost, Comparison
check this site out too: Educators: Nutrition Explorations it has a teachers page.
And: http://www.surfnetkids.com/nutrition.htm"The same process is applicable to building a math foundation. Like reading, kids must experience and practice math concepts. There are opportunities to use home school math skills through-out the day such as... cooking (recipes), shopping (checking prices, comparing values, considering the total cost of a few items)," from: Interactive Math Games & Educational Math Activities - Time4LearningMaybe start with an intro from: Teaching preschoolers through Cooking Time With Kids - Teaching preschoolers through CookingAnyways hope this helps.
I’ve got to get back to my stuff!

 

[cmdtrgd]

Thanks for all the ideas! Yes, I will be teaching teachers how to teach math to their students.

 

[lockhartkitchen]

I am a fourth grade teacher and I used PC products every year to teach math. First check out your state education web site for the math standards. It will help teachers see the connection.Equivalent/improper fractions- I re-wrote a recipe for no-bake cookies using improper fractions so the students had to convert before measuring. For example: 12/4 cup of flour= 3 cups I used the improper and equivalent with higher level 4th graders while some groups had the standard recipe. With liquid measurement- 4th grade students in Oregon are required to know how to read a measuring tool. Our tools are great for this, especially with three different types to read. Quick stir pitchers- students have to estimate how much more is needed to fill it when you have 2 cups inside.pastry sheet and roller- students can roll out play dough to given dimensions of a perimeter. Ex. Roll the dough so you have a square with a perimeter of 24 inches.Pie crust shield- trace a circle and measure the circumference and diamerter of the circle.I use the apple corer for a science/SS lesson on the earth and the core of the earth

 

[cmdtrgd]

Cool, Julie - do you happen to have lesson plans that you can email me so I can have something to give to the teachers? My email address is [email protected]Thanks!