Did you hear about that lady last week that was busted at Walmart drinking wine out of a Pringles can while taking a joy ride on an electric scooter? Pringles wine lady, you are my hero. Anyways, that is exactly what I felt like doing earlier this week when my 2nd grader and I were working on her math homework.
While I’m no mathematician, typically I can handle 2nd grade math homework pretty easily, (and thank you Siri for helping me with the tricky ones). What really makes me crazy however, is when a math problem is fundamentally simple, but my child gets caught up in trying to solve it in some fancy new way. Can someone tell me when basic math get so jazzy?
Here is the problem we were working on:
1. You baked 30 cookies. You gave 8 cookies to your teacher and 12 cookies to your neighbor. How many cookies do you have left?
Pretty simple, right? Â It seriously looked like my daughter was doing a combination of Sudoku and quantum mechanics to solve this problem. I couldn’t believe how she was getting herself so confused over something she could figure out in a second if she just thought about it. Trust me, if that kid baked 30 cookies and gave 20 away, she would know full-and-well how many cookies she had left, and she would be complaining for the rest of the day about only having 10 cookies. Hello!
So in hopes of helping my daughter see the real world application of basic math, we used actual cookies (Annies Organic Grabbits to be specific) to think about the problem. Sure, cookies are a distraction, but I told her she could eat a couple if she got the problem correct. Yay for positive reinforcement!
Needless to say, the problem gets solved when cookies are involved!
Next, we continued to the fractions portion of my daughter’s homework. To add a little playfulness to the process, we busted out a few basic kitchen items, and watched  THIS HILARIOUS VIDEO THAT YOU MUST SHOW YOUR KIDS for understanding the process of adding and subtracting fractions.  It was really amazing how using visuals to illustrate math problems really eliminated the intimidation-factor of fractions.  Instead of seeing numbers on a page, my daughter was able to visualize the problems in a way that is fun and realistic.
Here are a couple of examples of problems we were able to solve in the kitchen.
2. Â Solve:
1/4 + 1/2 =
Lets make this scary 2nd grade problem fun…..
Now, once you have solved the problem pour one measuring cup into the other to check your answer.
The answer is of course, 3/4. Â Woohoo!
Okay, moving on….
3. Solve: 1/4 + 3/4
Since we are working with the same denominator, this should be a piece of cake!
Check your answer by pouring one measuring cup into the other…
Voila!! Â Now take that one cup of whatever and go bake something fun!
We hope these ideas help your little ones understand a few math fundamentals with ease, and help keep you from drinking wine out of a Pringles can while helping your kids with their homework.
Have you ever used kitchen goods to teach math? Â If so, please let us know! Â We would love to share your ideas with the rest of our readers!!
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