Witches Brew, Ratio, Proportioning and Costings

by | Oct 5, 2012 | Events, Number, Teaching Ideas & Tools | 0 comments

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble!

Another of our Mathematical Halloween themed activities is using ratio and proportion to make witches brew.

The Brew

Download the recipe sheet I used with a low ability year 7 group here; Witches brew Recipe Sheet.

I renamed some basic ingredients to make them more disgusting sounding! Stagnant pond water = lemonade, pumpkin puree = orange juice, pink poison = cranberry juice, dash of blood = grenadine.

Any non-alcoholic recipe can easily be used as a witches brew, make it more ghastly by adding jelly snakes, eyes or other gruesome sweets available at this time of year! Check out this post by Emma Salk for non-alcoholic cocktail recipes.

The Lesson

Download this creepy cocktails starter activity of quick fire questions; Creepy cocktails ideal for low ability year 7 pupils, which recaps finding halves, doubles and thirds of amounts. Following which pupils then make the cocktail, using the recipe sheet (above) to find the measurements for one drink and then use Price List Witches brew to work out batch costs.

These resources were designed for low ability pupils, they can easily be differentiated by requiring students to work with more complex ratios, or requiring more precise measurement.

Numeracy Across the Curricular Links

Many links with the food technology department, adapting recipes and using the measuring jugs!

Further Ideas

Why not dress up and make an event of it by also making the pop-up 3D spiders (our next blog post soon to come)!

This idea can easily be adapted for Hawaiian themed beach party if you study ratio and proportion in the summer time. Check out the crazy cocktail resources, also available for free download from Number Loving’s resource shop.

We hope you like our ideas and would love to hear how they went in your school!

Crazy Cocktails – Ratio and Proportion gets a facelift!

by | Mar 28, 2012 | Events, Number, Teaching Ideas & Tools | 0 comments

Ratio and proportion is such a hands on topic it deserves more than a lesson on recipes for spaghetti Bol and pancakes. So why not try out some cocktails!

This has to be one of my favourite lessons, ideally ran over two sessions. In session one you discuss recipes and strategies for working out different quantities (example of Pomegranate Paradise is below), students then complete the four modeled examples on this sheet. In the next session students use the examples for inspiration and make up their own cocktail, they have to work out the cost of making 100 and the % profit (worksheet here). Then they get to make it and sample their hard work! You will need to borrow some measuring jugs from food tech and make a trip to home-bargains for some cheap ingredients.

My students loved this lesson and even stayed at break to make another one! There really is a lot of Maths involved, they have to work out proportions, convert measures, calculate cost, profit and then interpret scales and they certainly won’t be forgetting it in a hurry!

Get in touch @numberloving and check out our free and premium resources in our NumberLoving Store.

Handy Maths

by | Oct 27, 2011 | Number, Teaching Ideas & Tools | 0 comments

When all else has failed for learning the ‘difficult’ times tables try these handy tricks!

The classic nine’s known by most, is described nicely in the this youtube video by Fulltimekid

The following trick will take some practice to get the hand of, but works a treat.  To support pupils they can use stickers to number their fingers, or some numbered plastic gloves!

Great for learning

 

 

I hope your students find these tricks useful! Feedback always welcome! Get in touch @numberloving