Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Math in the Kitchen

Yesterday I brought us to the kitchen table for math.  I've done this several times before but I made it a bit different this time.  I took out 3 sets of items.

First Set:  Four different containers were brought to the table.  My big Costco bottle of balsamic vinegar, a can of mushrooms, my demarara sugar and sea salt.  We worked on reading the label to know what it is and then reading the measurements of what is in the container.  So we talked about lbs, liters, milliliters and ounces.  This was not an in depth explanation but an introduction to the terms.

Second Set:  We again went over the half cup, third cup and fourth cup measuring containers.  I had two different sets and we also read the milliliters on that.  We found out that the two half cup containers were actually a little bit different because one was more milliliters than the other.  Also I asked Pooh to think about how many half cups were in my liter of balsamic vinegar.  We did this based on milliliters too.  He was pretty close in his guess which gives me hope.  He's extremely math phobic.  He probably has dyscalculia which is why I teach a 6th grader and a 4th grader together.

Third Set:  I got out the monster muffins I bought at Lowes Food and cut them into fractions.  The first muffin was cut into fourths and discussed as I put it on Tigger's plate.  The second muffin was cut into eighths and put onto Pooh's plate.

Issues I noticed were:  Tigger keeps calling the half cup---one and a half cups.  Tigger had issues with saying 2/4th instead of one half in the muffin set.  We need to review liquid measurements and get an idea of how they work....ie ounces.

Last week I got out some chalk and we did sidewalk math.  I have photos that I will post when I am able.

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