Bake Your Way Through Math and Science

      Here is a sure-fired, never-hear-them-complain way to get your kids to develop an interest in the subjects of math and science, particularly chemistry: Break out the cookbooks. You read that right, cooking is one of the very BEST ways to teach fractions, chemical reactions as well as the basic concept of following directions as needed for the scientific method and lab reports. You can also integrate addition, subtraction, multiplication and division into the lessons as well.

 For example: if you are baking a big batch of yummy, melt in your mouth chocolate chip cookies, you can have one child read the ingredients as another child helps you locate them and organize them on the counter. When everything is ready, choose one child to measure the ingredients into the bowl and discuss the fractions on the measuring cups and spoons as you go along. Ask questions about what would the measurement be if the recipe was doubled or cut in half. Do so in the style of a pleasant conversation and resist the urge to become too teacher-like; remember, memories are being made as well.

   When all of the ingredients are combined and the dough is ready to be placed on the cookie sheet you can have fun counting out the rows and adding up how many you can get on one sheet. Keep track of how many balls of dough are eaten before they make it to the pans and subtract that number from the total number of finished cookies you would have had. 

 As the cookies come out of the oven you can talk about how they turned out and what might have happened if one or more ingredients had been changed or if the oven temperature had been hotter or cooler, or if different pans had been used. Explain that in a controlled scientific study these differences are called variances and would need to be listed to explain how the results could have been different.

     When you have finished with your afternoon of educational exploration, sit down together and enjoy some nice cookies and milk. You can do this whether you are baking cookies, or fixing a meal. The main goal is to create lessons of love and time spent together that will be cherished for the rest of their lives.