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!