Food is a great motivator for any lesson, but when it comes to math food is king. Gumdrops, jellybeans, goldfish crackers, and pretzel sticks are only the tip of the food items that make great math manipulatives. The Chocolate Chip Cookie Project not only involves food, it teaches students about estimating, grouping by 10s, and addition. It is a win-win lesson for all!
Teaching Estimation with Chocolate Chip Cookies
You will need:
Zippered sandwich bags filled with chocolate chips – 1 bag per child
Chart paper
Chocolate chip cookie templates – 1 per child
Chocolate Chip Cookie Project Estimation Sheet – 1 per child
Homemade chocolate chips cookies – 1 per child
Lesson
- Start by filling up the sandwiches bags with chocolate chips. Students will be estimating how many chips are in their bags. You can choose to fill the bags with the same amount or vary it.
- Have students record their estimates on a Chocolate Chip Cookie Project Estimation Sheet.
- After estimates have been made, students can count the number of chips in their bags by placing them in groups of ten. Once all of the chips have been counted, add up all of the totals to find out how many were in the class altogether.
- Pass out one cookie to each child and have them make tally marks on their sheet for each chocolate chip in their cookie. They can then color in the chocolate chip cookie template with the number of chips they found in their cookie.
- Cut out the cookie templates and place them in the appropriate column on a large graph that has columns for 0-3 chips, 4-7 chips, 8-11 chips, 12-15 chips, and more than 16 chips.
- Finish the lesson off by discussing the graph and the estimation activity.
Have fun!
Mrs. W says
Longing for the days we could use food in our teaching. Lucky for those who still can!