Asia Pacific International School
Hawaii
Is Homemade Worth it?
Authors: Allison Manley
Grades: 5-6
Subjects: Math
Timeline: 4 weeks
Essential Question
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Is homemade worth it?
Project Description​
Students each selected a food item that could both be purchased at a store and made at home and investigated the differences in price (and taste!) between the two. From potato chips to macarons, students were pushed to be creative in their selections. In order to find the cost of one individual cookie, brownie, macaron, or potato chip students had to utilize long division of decimals and unit conversions to break down the ingredient costs. Students traveled to local store to check prices, package sizes, and serving sizes. They researched recipes and learned new cooking and baking techniques as they brought their food items to life. Finally, after all their calculations were done, students created infographics displaying the cost breakdowns of each ingredient.
Project Extensions and Real World Connections:
Additionally, the environmental activism group was interviewed by a class in Mexico who was also learning about plastic pollution worldwide! Students were able to share their experiences with pollution on Hawaii and what their activism project did in order to mitigate the local problems they see day to day.
Products and Exhibition
Infographic Poster & Homemade Food Items
Reflections (student and teacher)
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In this project we distinguished between food at the store and food we made. We went in the store to find out how much ingredients cost. We made the food we wanted to make. I made a brownie. I used multiplication, division, addition, and subtraction. I wanted to stop because of the difficulty of division, but I had to keep going. I liked going to the store and I took pictures. I think homemade was worth it because less money and more delicious. - Lani
I had an AMAZING time doing this project! We got to go to the store, compare costs, buy ingredients, and bake cool treats just to find if homemade was worth it! I chose to make macarons. In the end I thought homemade was DEFINITELY worth it. First of all homemade macarons taste WAY better! Also, it made WAY more macarons, was WAY less expensive, and WAY funner! While doing this I got to practice lots decimal skills such as long division, multiplying, adding, and subtracting on decimals. I also got to use some non-math skills like baking, frying with oil, stirring with a whisk and KitchenAid, taste testing, shopping, research, comparing, and looking for good prices. The best parts of this project probably were taste testing, working as a team to bake, and seeing each others creations. It was easier with our AWESOME teacher. This project was SO GREAT! - Joey Plicka
Standards Addressed:
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CCSS.MATH.PRACTICE.MP4 Model with mathematics.
CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.5.NBT.B.7 Add, subtract, multiply, and divide decimals to hundredths, using concrete models or drawings and strategies based on place value, properties of operations, and/or the relationship between addition and subtraction; relate the strategy to a written method and explain the reasoning used.
CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.6.NS.B.2 Fluently divide multi-digit numbers using the standard algorithm. CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.6.NS.B.3 Fluently add, subtract, multiply, and divide multi-digit decimals using the standard algorithm for each operation.