We were needing a break a couple days ago during homeschooling and making cookies seemed to check all the boxes. I was reminded of the old skit by Bill Cosby where he discussed cake for breakfast…. eggs, milk…. yep it’s breakfast! Making cookies is fractions! We now have a math activity that ends with a snack and to top it off we are up and moving around the kitchen using some fine motor skills. As my husband came in he reminded us there was chemistry involved also. Perfect! If you really want to cover the bases it had reading too because of reading the recipe…
We ate the cookies to ‘Would you Lie to Me?’ a recent show that was on TV and learned something about human behavior. My son joked that would be social studies and we had covered the day. My thought was that he works so hard normally it was a good day and he needs the flexibility once in a while.
There are so many things that you can do with fractions and cooking. Look at adjusting the recipe to make more, or make less, convert the measurements to different units….. there are options, or just measuring with fractions. Then how many cookies fit on a sheet, how many sheets do you need, how much time, changing the cooking time if you change the temperature….
One of our ‘experiments’ with cooking involved accidently putting in too much baking soda. (A tablespoon instead of a teaspoon) So we had the discussion about what will that cause to happen? What does baking soda do in a recipe?
In cooking, baking soda is primarily used in baking as a leavening agent. When it reacts with acid, carbon dioxide is released, which causes expansion of the batter and forms the characteristic texture and grain in pancakes, cakes, quick breads, soda bread, and other baked and fried foods.Chemical formula: NaHCO, ₃
Our cookies came out of the oven and were almost immediately pounced upon as snacks. I’m pretty happy that my little one this year has been ore willing to try knew new things. I think this was our second time making cookies and he was willing to eat them both times. For someone that doesn’t like broken cookies or cookies that aren’t round from the store I consider that a win!
https://oureverydaylife.com/how-to-set-a-wristwatch-12273992.html
https://www.theottoolbox.com/teach-fractions-in-kitchen/
https://www.perkinselearning.org/activity/cooking-fractions
http://www.montereyinstitute.org/courses/DevelopmentalMath/U02PROJECT_RESOURCE/index.html
https://www.scholastic.com/content/dam/parents/migrated-assets/printables/pdfs/problem-solving-and-cooking-printable_v2.pdf