What is up to people telling everyone to "bake" to teach math?

[Anonymous]

"You can bake a cake to teach fractions" like if fractions is all math is about? Also, are people supposed to bake every single day? Holly molly, you better get your flour at costco if you are planning on teaching fractions only by baking.

Just a rant.... move on.

[Anonymous]

We use baking for math reinforcement and some science.

For math — Fraction, measurements (“if there are 3 tsp in 1
Tbs and 4 Tbs in 1/4 cup, how many tsp are in 2.5 cups of water?”), weight and conversion of grams and oz, temperature and conversion Celsius vs Fahrenheit, timing, pacing, etc. It seems endless.

It’s just a fun way to reinforce learning or teach new concepts. My son loves it.

[Anonymous]

Are you always this literal?

[Anonymous]

That's teaching arithmetic. Depending on the age, it might be fine. Math is a bit more than just arithmetic.

[Anonymous]

It’s a favorite of unschoolers.

[Anonymous]

OP, it makes me smile too. I mean, I do think baking is a nice reinforcement for a very very tiny aspect of math, and you can set up some nice word problems this way, but I am not prepared to turn my kitchen into a bakery.

[Anonymous]

The dumbing down of America continues

[Anonymous]

I'd rather go shopping. 70% off, 10% off coupon and now add in 6% taxes.

[Anonymous]

I helped my 10 year old make a double batch of blueberry muffins the other day and found that it was a good review of some of the things they covered in 4th grade. With a little bit of chemistry thrown in, I guess. I didn’t intend it to be a lesson but took advantage of a learning opportunity when I saw it.

[Anonymous]

I thought that was mostly for preschoolers? My 3 year old gets some good counting reinforcement and one-to-one correspondence helping me make sure I get enough cups of flour in dough and stuff.

To get into more advanced arithmetic, you really have to be doing stuff like 01:26 recommended. I only do that when I'm doing something weird like 2/3rd-ing a recipe, which is not a task I usually attempt with 3 DC "helping."

[Anonymous]

We generally don't do much baking, but my 5 year old gets a kick out of helping me scale recipes. He pulls out his white board to do the math. It has been a good reinforcement of addition skills and a good introduction to the idea of fractions.

[Anonymous]

It's a good way to show how to apply fractions in real life. If you are making half of the recipe, you can easily show how multiplying fractions work, everyone has different ways to learn.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I thought that was mostly for preschoolers? My 3 year old gets some good counting reinforcement and one-to-one correspondence helping me make sure I get enough cups of flour in dough and stuff.

To get into more advanced arithmetic, you really have to be doing stuff like 01:26 recommended. I only do that when I'm doing something weird like 2/3rd-ing a recipe, which is not a task I usually attempt with 3 DC "helping."

That’s because he is 3. When he is 10 and learning fractions you will happily doubling or halving recipes and realizing it is somewhat useful. Not in place of other things, but as an occasional visual refresher of what 1/2 of a 1/3 looks like.

[Anonymous]

I think OP gets all this. What’s silly is advice for supporting home learning that starts and ends with “baking is a great way to teach math.”

[Anonymous]

It’s a good activity, among many others, for reinforcing math skills. My 4th grader sailed through fractions because he’s been cooking and baking for years with me. An added bonus is teaching life skills. That same 4th grader is perfectly comfortable cooking dinner or baking a cake on his own.