Fractions + Snacks = Recipes (and Math...shhh...don't tell them!)




Kids are naturally attracted to snack foods. If you have been reading here for awhile, you  have probably seen how I have incorporated food ideas in many of the activities. It is because it draws their interest and then you can wrap this natural interest around some nugget of a concept you want them to learn. It could be the layers of the earth or how the Romans made roads or it could be fractions. I have talked about how I have used measuring cup fractions with cooking on more than one occasion. Today's activity, however, was not them following a recipe but around them making up their own recipe. And, therefore, their own fractional problems to answer. 
How empowering is that?
I got together a table full of munchies from the cabinets. The rules of the game are, however, that they have to stick within a reasonable 2-cup limit.
I had some of these cutsie little snack boxes for them to make their mixes in.
I gave them slips of paper, some of which were folded into either three sections or eight sections.
They could pick which type of paper they wanted to use and got to work writing down what they picked for their mix, including the fractional amounts.

So, now the game was on.
After the ingredients were added to make 2 cups of snack mix, they shook them up to mix.
This mix is an equal mixture mixed nuts, chocolate candies, white chocolate chips, popcorn; 1/2 cup each.
The fractional amounts can be written out as fractional problems.
1/2 +1/2 +1/2 +1/2 = 2
This is one student's mix, that we called it El Blano, as it looked so white. His recipe is 1/4 cup white chocolate chips, 1 cup popcorn, 1/2 cup mini marshmallows and 1/4 cup chocolate candies.
1/4 + 1 + 1/2 +1/4 = 2
This one had a complex recipe of 1/8+ 1/3 cup chocolate candies, 3/8 + 1/3 cup popcorn, 3/8 cup pretzels, 1/8 cup mixed fruit, 1/3 cup white chocolate chips. 
1/8 + 1/3 + 3/8 + 1/3 + 3/8 + 1/8 + 1/3 = 2
Here is my youngest student's variety mix of 1 cup popcorn, 1/4 cup mixed nuts, 1/4 cup raisins, 1/4 cup chocolate candies, and 1/4 cup white chocolate chips.
1 + 1/4 + 1/4 + 1/4 + 1/4 = 2
And what goes better with a math snack than a choice of hot chocolate or tea?

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