Collaborative Cooking Project to Teach Doubling & Halving

Last week all of the students from Year 1 (Kindergarten) through Year 6 (5th grade) worked on doubling and halving in math.  The Year 1 and Year 2 students worked on doubling and halving the numbers from 1 – 10.  The Year 3 – Year 5 students worked on doubling and halving larger numbers (2 – 4 digit numbers).  Year 6 worked on doubling and halving decimals and fractions.  On Friday, we combined all three classes and spent two hours cooking doubled recipes.  The students worked in multiage groups of 4 or 5 students.

 

First, the kids had to take there recipes and find the amounts needed for half a recipe and for double a recipe.  Each group had a different recipe.  Our recipes included – Orange Smoothie, Homemade Playdough, Ice Cream in a Bag, Chocolate Peanut Butter Bark, Jell-O and Vanilla Cakes.  Feel free to download our recipes sheets from Google Docs.

    

     

Then, the students had to go through the steps of creating their recipes.  Although we had three teachers around to help, most of the groups were able to follow the recipes autonomously, generally led by their Year 6 students.

                            

               

Each of the recipes finished at different times, so those students who finished early – or who had a long amount of time waiting during a step in their recipe – received a piece of paper and some crayons to reflect on the cooking experience.

          

Once all of the recipes were complete – each group served their finished product to the other friends.  The students were also responsible for cleaning up the materials and workspace where they cooked.  Since many of our students come from homes with household help, this is an important skill for our students to practice.

   

The entire experience was a wonderful time for our students to work on cooperative learning skills, leadership skills, self – help skills, math skills, reading and writing skills.

How do you use cooking in your classroom?