November 19, 2010
Thanksgiving Dinner Math Activities
How many people are coming over? How much food should we buy? How many pies should we make so each person gets a piece? These are the typical questions I hear each year. Many families prepare large meals for their family and friends; so it can be the perfect time to involve your children in dinner preparation to incorporate real-life conceptual understanding of mathematics. Here are some activities!
- Have your child determine what size turkey you need to feed everyone coming for dinner. (How many pounds should you purchase if you have 10 people attending and 1 ½ pounds per person ?)
- Already purchased a turkey ? Have your child calculate how much each person can have. (You have a 20 pound turkey and 8 people coming for dinner. How much turkey will each person be able to have?)
- Review elapsed time by helping your child write down the times that the turkey went into the oven and the time it came out. Younger children might need a little help calculating the number of hours if it crosses a 12.
- Setting the table. Simply counting out forks, knives and spoons can be helpful practice for many early learners.
- Math with pies can be extra fun! If everyone eats 1/8th of a pie, how many pies do you need to serve 14 people? And if you have 8 slices of pie, and two are left over, what fraction of pie is left over?
Incorporating math into everyday activities can help strengthen a child’s conceptual understanding. What Thanksgiving activities do you do at home or in the classroom that encourage math learning?
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