Increase your student’s confidence with ratios and proportions in less than 10 minutes!

But first! Have you watched our Introduction to Ratios? We recommend starting there!

It’s party time, playtime, or any other excuse our brains can conjure for it to be…cake time! Yes, “cake time” DOES deserve to be bold and underlined! “What does this have to do with multisensory math?” Hold that thought! We’re in our kitchen, crafting that delicious Chocolate Coconut, Carrot, or Buttercreme concoction of glory and joy!

Now, prepare yourself for the philosophical question of the day:
“What is better than a cake?”

More
cake.

Yum…cake

Ok, that’s debatable. Still, let’s pretend we double, triple, or quadruple the recipe!

Why?

1. A birthday party?
2. Coping with pandemic stress?
3. Just because?

Let’s imagine our creation has a 3 to 2 ratio of flour to sugar. We can write this ratio two other ways: 3/2 or 3:2

Flour to Sugar Ratio

This is the real-life application that our math specialists works from in this video. Brittany calls upon Cuisenaire rods, number lines, and a gentle presentation to connect math to the senses: touch, sound, sight, and yes…if we are talking about cakes…taste! That is what we call multisensory!

Related: FREE trial of “Stress-Free Fractions”

When we create equivalent ratios, we are keeping our culinary creations in balance..and isn’t that what we are all aiming for anyway? Who knew math was so deep!

So, if we quintuple the recipe (multiple by 5), how does that work? For the backstory, discover the most important fraction rules ever! In this video, Brittany weaves fractions, number relationships, and vocabulary into an emotionally sound way to present proportions. For example, this line from the video, “How many groups of 3 can we make from 9?” That is the explicit math language that we know helps our children flourish in mathematics! This type of specialized instruction is not the exception, it is the rule for us. Story after story shows this to be true.

Ratios are a part of life, not only in the desserts, but also in ecology, or our own well-being. What was my rate of rest to work this past week? In giving our kids the gift of proportions in a multisensory math approach, we provide them with the freedom to be playful in the kitchen. We also, over time, enjoy the newfound math confidence benefits multiply into other areas of life!

Calculations enhance our ability to party…exponentially.
So let’s quintuple that hot cake recipe! Tell us about it!

Maybe because our math is not a mess, we can make a joyful mess in the kitchen.

Before you go!

1. Click here for “The CopyCat Fraction Trick” Free Printable!
2. Let your student watch the video and complete the Freebie page!

MFM Authors