Key Lime Pie, Muscles & More

Preparing key lime pie with little helpers, I realized our taste buds and our handwriting skills would benefit from our efforts. Little fingers reach for half a key lime, then squeeze citrus juice into a bowl, a perfect way for our littles to help prepare treats in the kitchen and strengthen fine motor skills needed to write. Thirty-five key limes later, we were ready to mix--another opportunity to strengthen muscles!

We strengthened muscles but we also built conversation skills and did a little learning. Here is what we did:

• We compared the size, color, and taste of key limes to oranges, limes, grapefruits, and lemons. Order by size. (Math, Science)
• Defined and discussed spheres in regards to the citrus. Found other spheres around the house.
• Measure the circumferences of several types of citrus with a string. Then measure the strings on a ruler to compare circumferences. Lay strings in order, shortest to longest. (Math)
• Count the fruit sections of an orange, lime, key lime, grapefruit, and lemon. Are they the same or different? (Math, Critical Thinking)
• Read the book Each Orange Had 8 Slices, Paul Giganti, Jr. 
• Draw still life pictures of the fruit, practicing shading techniques. (Art)
• Set the oven at 375 degrees. Write the temperature on a piece of paper using numbers and degrees symbol. (Math)
• Set a kitchen timer for the length of time the pie will bake. Write the ending time on the piece of paper with the oven temperature.(Math) 
• When the pie cools, discuss the definitions of diameter and radius. Measure the diameter of the cooled pie. Divide by 2 to find the radius. (Math)

Looking for ways to connect preparing snacks and meals to learning for your littles? Check out my resource, Flip Three Pancakes with One Spatula.

Real-Life Learning: Teaching Elapsed Time

"Mom, can I use your phone?"

"We want to see how long it takes to get home!"

Elapsed time. A very abstract concept for a concrete six-year-old learner. The concept is often taught on paper with a story problem:

Emily is baking chocolate cake. The cake must bake for 38 minutes. If Emily puts the cake in the oven at 2:15 pm, what time will she need to take the cake out of the oven?

Most children learn elapsed time by this manner. This is a necessary piece of the elapsed time puzzle. However, there is another piece many parents and teachers miss. Internal, personal understanding of elapsed time is not something that can taught on paper. It must be experienced, not just once, but many times. Understanding this part of the elapsed time concept is a necessity for life. Without it, time management is nearly impossible.

"Don't start the car yet! I have to set the time. When I tell you, turn the key."

Seconds later I was told to start the car. The stop watch on my phone ticking away, I pulled out of the parking space. Heads craned around confining seat belts (though we were excited about learning, I reminded learners they must remain in their seat belts). Shouts of learning excitement filled the car.

"It's two minutes thirty seconds!" An older learner shouted. Little learner listened, as the digital numbers were read orally; another important skill.

"Now it's four minutes twenty-nine seconds!"

Six minutes forty-two seconds later, we pulled in the driveway. 

We experienced lapsed time, visually, auditorily, and kinesthetically.

We unpacked groceries and learners had more ideas:

• How long will it take to fill a gallon milk jug with water, faucet open as far as possible?
• How long will it take for a marble to roll down the KNEX ramp?
• How long will it take me to get dressed?
• How long will it take for water to boil?
• How long will it take for the clothes to dry in the dryer?  or Is the time on the dryer dial accurate?
• How long will it take for us to get to the library? Does it take longer to go to the library than to the grocery store? (Comparison of time is the next level of elapsed time. Write down each elapsed digital time and subtract to find the difference.We do this every day! )

Teaching elapsed time can be fun and relative to life.

It can also help children and young adults plan their days well. Will I have enough time to brush my teeth and still read an extra paragraph before emptying the dishwasher for mom? Will I have time to stop for gas and still get to work on time? 

If you are looking for ways to make take math off paper for little learners ages 4 through 8, you may find A Month of Math: Measurement or A Month of Math: Geometry helpful resources.

Measuring in Snickers

Have you ever measured in Snickers?

Young children, generally preschoolers, often learn to measure in non-standard (inconsistent) measurements before they measure in standard (consistent) measurements. Non-standard units might be blocks or perhaps toy cars.

Why not Snickers?

Seeing a little learner build a tower of blocks, a not-so-little learner remembered an extra Snickers bar in the cabinet.

"We could measure the tower of blocks with the Snickers!"

Brilliant!

Now EVERYONE was engaged!

Yes, we could.

Within seconds we discovered the little learner's tower was two Snickers tall.

Soon we were measuring the lengths of books and tables, and then the height of the kitchen counter.

"The book is three Snickers long. The table is 15 Snickers long."

"Five books would be as long as the table."

Math was fun!

Drawing visual representations helped conceptualize the measurement.

Before too long, a not-so-little learner asked the question I knew would surface eventually.

"How long is the Snickers?"

Get the ruler.

End-to-end, not including the wrapper, the Snickers measured in at just a one-sixteenth short of four inches.

Wonderful. Now for a discussion on "approximate length", followed by the conclusion drawn by one little learner.

"If the Snickers is four inches long, then the block tower is eight inches tall!"

Absolutely!

We understand. 

I realized our Snickers would be a great motivator for learning our "fours" (multiplication tables). Again, an object of interest (the Snickers bar) was the perfect motivation for learning. Boy, did we learn those facts quickly...not soon to be forgotten either!

1 Snickers bar is 4 inches long                                            1x4=4
2 Snickers bars is 8 inches long                                          2x4=8
3 Snickers bars is 12 inches long (yes, one foot!)                3x4=12
4 Snickers bars is 16 inches long                                        4x4=16

and so on...

Our last Snickers measuring experience involved dividing the bar up evenly. Since we found the Snickers to be four inches long and there were four people with whom to divide the treat, it was easy to figure each person would receive one inch of Snickers (and let me tell you, this part of the measurement was deemed the most accurate of the day since everyone wanted to make sure the bar was divided evenly). But what if the bar needed to be divided into five parts, or even six? That take division to the remainder level! We didn't have to go there.

Several important lessons were learned:

• Visual pictures or representations help visual learners create a mental picture of a specific unit of measure; in our case the approximate length of four inches. I have found this helpful in my children as well as children I have tutored. Later when estimation becomes a necessary life skill, the visual representation will have created the immediate association. For example, my children "know" the approximate area of one square inch because they know a small square cheese cracker (picture Cheez-It) is approximately one square inch.
• If you don't have a ruler or yard stick (standard unit of measure), be resourceful and use what you have (a string, a foot, an arm's length).
• One concept can be used to learn another.

Now for another curious question raised by a curious learner.

If a Snickers bar is 4 inches long, is a Milky Way the same length?

Guess we need to find out!

Measurement: My Newest Math Resource

My children are excited about Measurement, the second book in my Month of Math series.

I think your children will be, too! 

Why? 

Candy bars measure length. Rice compares quantity. Square cheese crackers teach area. 

Bicycles peddle miles. 

Measurement is real, part of life. Not a concept stuck on a page, obscure. 

The activities in this book were enjoyed in our home with objects and items we encountered every day.

We measured, drew visual representations, discovered, walked perimeters. 

Now, we understand!

Weighty Matters: Kitchen Scale FUN!

Kitchen scales bring math to life. None threatening. Almost unnoticed. Naturally. 

When our oldest was five years old we replaced our familiar preschool bucket balance scale (the simple one which determined lightest and heaviest without numerical connection) with a $9.99 kitchen scale from Walmart. The minute the box opened items were placed on the scale: a potato, a toy car, a box of tea bags, mom's slipper. Anything that could be weighed was. Even liquids were weighed, thanks to the nifty plastic bucket which could be placed on the scale. Which is heavier, the potato or the slipper? Which weighs more, a cup of sugar or a cup of rice? By the end of the day, our son knew how to read a mechanical kitchen scale, purely due to his interest in our new found measuring tool.

We've also had opportunities to use digital scales. Experiences with digital scales has offered a nonthreatening opportunities to teach greater and less than using decimals. Decimal scales also sparked an interest in adding decimals; a concept often not introduced until third or fourth grade but understandable when taught earlier with real life application.

Eighteen years and six children later, our mechanical kitchen scale continues to be one of our favorite measuring tools. Our scale introduced and helped us to express comparison of weight, measurement terminology, measurement conversion, and number operations using weight units. Perhaps one of the greatest benefits of using our scale has been our children having the opportunity to once again take math off a one dimensional page and apply it to their very active lives.


Our children want to know more about scales? Click here!

New Mama-Made Game

Mama-made games are becoming very popular at our house. And, we are learning!

Here is the latest mama-made game at our house (a small sampling of about 30 abbreviations in a variety of colors). We were struggling with abbreviations and multiple worksheets...well, that wasn't the answer. So, I took learning off the page and put it into their hands. What happened? They loved it! We matched the abbreviations and learned how to spell measurement words.

Side note: the visual-spatial child ordered the color shades (not shown here). Very cool!

Maybe there is a concept you can pull off the page for your child. Doesn't have to be fancy to be fun.

A Handsomely Fabulous Way to Learn Measurement

Searching the internet, I happened across a great way to teach or to reinforce units of capacity. I love hands-on, interactive ways to teach and to learn math, so Measurement Man was right up my alley, I mean abacus.

My girls LOVED this activity which is the best I have found to teach this concept in a hands-on, concrete method.

I posted the link on the Flip Three Pancakes page of my website. If you liked Measurement Man, you will love the other activities I posted.

Learning and Life Collide: Making Yogurt

Dining at a friends home recently, the hostess inspired me as she began heating milk to make yogurt. As we visited, she told me she had been doing this for quite some time. Me, I had never tried. However, with a family of nine consuming a minimum of 3 quarts of yogurt a week, I was empowered to give the process a try. My friend shared her yogurt making wisdom--explaining the cooler method she found by trial and error to be easiest.

When I returned home, I began my first yogurt making attempt by placing "homemade cooler yogurt" into a search engine. I read. I compared. I gathered needed equipment, most of which I had. My first attempt was successful, very successful, and I realized this process was yet another example of how learning and life collide. I wanted to involve my children in the process.

The first attempt, a successful walk through for me, I decided I understood the process enough to involve my children for my second yogurt making event. I retrieved the candy thermometer (left over from our yummy lollipop making experiments) from safe storage and gave the children a quick review about the care, use, and purpose of a thermometer. They were, once again, intrigued. We attached the thermometer to the side of the pot, poured in the milk, and turned the burner on medium. Each took a turn stirring. We periodically checked the temperature of the milk, giving us repeated practice reading a thermometer. One of the children drew a thermometer with the current temperature of the milk. A great way to incorporate multiple learning modalities.

As the milk heated we prepared the canning jars and discussed the difference between pints and quarts. The oldest helpers reviewed how many pints and quarts were in a gallon. One of the children suggested we pour pints of water into our empty milk jug to see if our calculations were indeed accurate; an excellent visual for our younger learners to have a concrete experience in measurements. We followed the remaining instructions and placed our yogurt into a cooler to "culture". After eight hours of "culturing" in the cooler, we placed our fresh yogurt in the refrigerator. We were all very excited about what we had accomplished together. In fact, we were all so enthused we decided to calculate how much money we had saved by making our own yogurt. What a learning experience!

My third attempt produced yogurt which was just a tad thicker than milk. Still yummy, just runny. Trying to figure out what went wrong. However, with fresh fruit, it made great breakfast smoothies.

There are several recipes, some using milk, others using soy or powdered milk. Experiment and choose what works best for your family.

Helpful links for yogurt making:

http://thefrugalgirl.wordpress.com/2008/07/27/how-to-make-homemade-yogurt/

http://fiascofarm.com/dairy/yogurt.htm

http://www.choosing-natural-health.com/make-yogurt.html

http://livelonger.hubpages.com/hub/How_to_make_your_own_yogurt_-_An_illustrated_guide

http://cookingsimplefood.wordpress.com/2010/08/06/making-homemade-yogurt-in-a-styrofoam-cooler/

http://www.nourishingdays.com/2010/11/how-i-am-making-yogurt-right-now-the-cooler-method/

http://www.mysisterskitchenonline.com/2006/10/10/homemade-yogurtcouldnt-be-easier/

Crockpot versions:

http://ourlifesimplified.com/kitchen/all-recipes/homemade-yogurt-in-a-crockpot/

This crockpot version has become my favorite, though my ancient crockpot takes six hours on high to reach 180 degrees! Still beats having to worry about stirring in between family needs. I simply put the milk in the crockpot at 9 AM and never open the lid until 3 PM when I check the temperature and begin the cooling process. When the milk lowers to 110degrees, I add the starter, wrap in a towel and place in a cooler overnight. BEST yogurt ever! It was worth the tweaking to figure out what process worked best for our family.

http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/2008/10/you-can-make-yogurt-in-your-crockpot.html