Parents are always looking for ways to encourage learning at home. Math, one of the main Common Core subjects, is sometimes pushed to the wayside in this quest because many parents haven't taken algebra or geometry in years and have forgotten what they learned. One way to work math into at-home learning is through cooking.
Talk fractions
If your children are just starting to learn about numerators and denominators, this is a great time to do some chef math! While your kids may not be ready to handle a sharp knife to cut bell peppers into their own fraction representations, they can use strips that you've already cut to talk you through a few fractions. Have your kids sit near where you're working and use cut-up veggies to demonstrate what they're learning in class.
For example, if your daughter places four pieces of pepper at the top of the cutting board and your son puts three pieces at the bottom, this can represent the fraction 4/3. If you come in and add three pepper pieces to the bottom, the fraction changes to 4/6. You can then have your kids reduce the fraction to its smallest form, or 2/3. Just be sure everyone has washed their hands before playing with vegetables so you can turn them into a delicious stir-fry or soup when you're done!
Play with shapes
Staring at a series of triangles on paper doesn't equate to understanding tessellation. Instead, use foods to do a more hands-on activity. Ann McCallum, a teacher and author, wrote a book called, "Eat Your Math Homework: Recipes for Hungry Minds." In the volume, McCallum includes recipes for creating math projects like Fibonacci Snack Sticks, which your children can use to learn about the Fibonacci sequence. Looking to make a family snack? Use triangular tortilla chips to create delicious nachos and discuss the angles and lengths of these shapes. Plus, the author loves a good math joke, like "Why was the handsome king bunny such a great mathematician? Because he was a magnificent ruler!" You don't need a degree in math to turn cooking into a fun learning endeavor. Just think outside the box about measuring, chopping and timing, and you can come up with a way to get your kids involved in making food while also learning about math.
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