Foodie Friday

Today we have had a "Foodie" Friday.

We started this morning in maths.  I brought several oranges in and sat everyone around one of our tables.

I held up an orange and asked what we would call it as a fraction.  "A whole" came the resounding answer so we wrote 1/1 on a piece of paper and put the orange down.  I then asked what fraction would I have if I cut the orange in two.  This time after cutting we talking about how they needed to be equal size pieces and how we would write a half.  We also talked about what the 1 and the 2 meant i.e. 1/2 is 1 of 2 equal size pieces.

We did the same with more oranges cutting them into thirds, quarters, fifths and tenths and lined them all up on plates.  We discussed which piece of orange would be the best to eat if you were hungry, and looked at how the denominator (the bottom number) gets bigger as the size of the piece of orange got smaller.

Then we ate the oranges!



Next, I drew some shapes onto pieces of paper, and after naming each shape, I divided the shapes to show different fractions.  I then counted out amounts of marshmallows onto plates and we talked finding a fraction of a set e.g. if we had 10 marshmallows and had to give half to one person and half to another how many would each get?  We used mathematical language to show that equal sharing is the same as dividing, and we talked about how we can use multiplication to help us find the answer.

Then we ate the marshmallows!

Then we made cones out of paper and went to morning tea.

Finally, after morning tea I asked all the students to sit down with their writing books and listen carefully to the sounds they could hear, and to use their other senses to write words in their books.  Meanwhile, out of sight, I opened a bag of popcorn kernels, filled up a popcorn machine and started it up.  Soon the students guessed what they were listening to as the popping sounds started.

After the first lot of  popcorn had popped, I made a second batch with everyone able to see the popcorn popping.  Their task was then to write about what they saw, heard, tasted, touched and thought as they were listening and watching.  When they had finished they got to get their paper cone they had made before morning tea and get it filled with popcorn.

Learning is always easier when it is fun, and I think we've done a little bit of both today!

Some snippets of our writing:

"It looks big and puffy.  The popcorn is jumping." - Rihana.

"I heard a packet rattling.  I heard beans scrunching.  I see popcorn popping out.  It tastes yum and it is crackling." - Kai

"I heard popcorn exploding.  I wondered why we had popcorn."  - Mayer

"I see the popcorn machine going.  I see popcorn popping in a bowl.  I touch yummy delicious popcorn." - Bede

"I can see the popcorn excited to get out.  I touched the super rough surface of the warm popcorn."
 - Julia