Math is Real Life: Crockpot Group

It's the first Wednesday of the month, which means it's time to link up with all of my awesome math blogging buddies for Math is Real Life!

A monthly REAL WORLD math blog link-up hosted by

 4mulaFun, Fourth Grade Studio, Teaching to Inspire in 5th, AND MissMathDork,

I love this linky, because I'm constantly trying to stress to my students that math isn't just for school, but that it is all around them!

Ok, so first of all, I have to tell you about two different students who came up with real world math problems in class just with things that were around us.  I was passing out file folders to make our government lapbooks and there were 50 folders in the box and four different colors of folders.  One student says, "Mrs. Webber we can figure out how many of each color there are by doing 50 divided by 4!" Wow!  Then later I was passing out notebook paper for a math problem and I had opened a brand new package of paper with 150 sheets in it.  A different student says, "Mrs. Webber, if you gave each student one piece of paper, then you would have enough for 6 classes if there were 25 students in each class!"  OMG!!!!!  They really are getting it!  Made this math teacher super proud!

On to the actual post at hand... Crockpot group!

My partner teacher has quite the love for her crockpot.  She has been known to make crockpot meals for breakfast, and dinner in the same day!  She decided that she wanted to put a group together that would make crockpot freezer meals (everything you would need for a crockpot meal frozen in a gallon size bag).  This would require getting 10 people together, each person makes one recipe 10 times to share with everyone in the group.  I said, "Sign me up!"  It took us a while to get all 10 people together including some last minute adds and drops, but we exchanged on Saturday and this is the haul I came home with!

We met at a Starbucks (too small for our little exchange) so we went to a parking lot next to the Starbucks and traded bags in the freezing cold drizzling morning! It was a little crazy and VERY cold!

For my contribution to the group, I decided to make Chicken Fajitas from {this} recipe. Seemed easy enough and wouldn't require any cooking before hand on my part.  Now for the math.

First I I had to write out my recipe.

·       2 peppers 

·       1 onion

·       1 1/2 pound chicken breast

·       1/2 cup chicken broth

·       taco seasoning packet

·       1 tsp. chili powder

·       1/2 tsp. paprika

·       1 tsp. salt

Then I had to multiply each ingredient by 10!

For most of it, not too hard.  1/2 tsp of paprika = 5 total tsp of paprika.  I actually didn't really even need to worry about that too much because I had to measure out 1/2 tsp for each bag as I put them all together.  Let me say that I have never used that much paprika at one time!

There were a couple of tricky math conversions for me.  1/2 cup of chicken broth = how much of a can???  I had no idea, so I went to Google to verify my conversions that 4 oz = 1/2 cup.  Well, each can had 14.5 oz in it, so I could do almost 4 freezer bags with one can.  Which meant I would need a total of 3 cans, which were sitting in my pantry!

Next was the taco seasoning.  We don't buy the individual packets, because they really are a rip off.  We buy the giant 20 ounce seasoning from Sam's Club.  I didn't know how much seasoning was in an individual packet though.  Again, I went to Google.  I packet has 1 ounce, which is actually 2 tbls!  Ok, easy enough!

I did all of this math before I went to store.  Here are the groceries before we got started! Sorry for the blurry picture!

I had to write the directions for the fajitas 10 times as well.  Each bag has the directions for my meal

The hubby did a great job of cutting the veggies while I added the seasoning to each bag.

Here are 10 of my bags before they went into the freezer.

I kept one bag and got 9 different bags in return.  I'm so exicted to have 10 different meals ready to put the crockpot over the next month!

One of the most fun parts of this experience was sitting at Starbucks sharing our stories of converting measurements, cost cutting measures, and time it took to put the bags together.  I was getting a kick out of the frustrations and loving hearing all the math talk!

Don't forget to go check out all of the other Math is Real Life posts to see where math is in the real world!

Math IS Real Life: Coupons

So I'm little on the late side for this monthly link up, but there have been so many other things to post about this week!

A monthly REAL WORLD math blog link-up hosted by

 4mulaFun, Fourth Grade Studio, Teaching to Inspire in 5th, AND MissMathDork,

I love this link up because it really showcases what I try to tell my parents all the time!  Math is all around us and if you want to help your student in math, then help them see math everywhere they go!

My mom was and still is a bargain hunter!  She never goes to the grocery store without her coupons in hand.  The hubby and I like a good deal, too, but we don't do nearly as well with our coupons, but we try!  On a recent trip to Target I had 2 coupons for Blistex.

I use chapstick regularly(even tho my hubby hates it!) and it disappears often into the hands of the little one!  I wanted to get the best deal using my coupon but I didn't need an abundance of chapstick. I decided to only use one of the coupons on this trip.  I could either buy one item and save $0.25 or buy two items and save $0.75.

Target didn't have a ton of selection in the Blistex department.  Ok so with my 2 coupon choices and my two Blistex package options, I had 4 different combinations of coupon/Blistex to choose from. I figured that buying the three pack was the better option as it cost less for one package of 3 verses two one tube packages, but I wanted to figure out exactly the cost of each tube in each of the four options.

So after doing the math the cheapest option was Choice #3!  $0.67 for a tube of chaptstick is a pretty awesome price!  Now I have a tube in every possible place I could need one and the Little one can even carry one around! 

I love using math in real life!

Math IS Real LIfe

So I've missed linking up the last couple of months with Math Is Real Life, but I actually had a reason to blog this month! I love this linky because this is exactly what I tell my parents to do when their children are struggling in math.  Math is all around us and it's awesome to see how all of my favorite math blogger friends are using math!

A monthly REAL WORLD math blog link-up hosted by

 4mulaFun, Fourth Grade Studio, Teaching to Inspire in 5th, AND MissMathDork

I wrote about crocheting in my Tried It Tuesday post this week.  This post is an extension of that first post!  

As I said, I am working on a blanket for a friend's baby.  I'm following this pattern.  

For the baby blanket size I have to crochet 192 rows.  I am using three different colors for the blanket and I've been doing a lot of math to figure out how much yarn I will need for the blanket and how much time it will take me to finish the blanket. 

I've calculated the time to finish a few different ways.  The first way is in days based on completing 6 rows each day.  If I can finish 6 rows a day, I will finish in 32 days.  I presented this problem to my students and they came up with some great strategies for dividing 192 by 6.  We've been working on the distributive property and they also love using the "hangman" method for division. When I can get back up to school, I will add their work samples!

The second way I've calculated time to finish is in minutes. It takes me about 8 minutes to complete a row if I don't stop or get distracted by anything.  I timed it! :)

So to complete all 192 rows will take me 1,536 minutes or 25 hours and 36 minutes.  

After I presented the first problem, I took it up a notch to give my students a challenge.  I told them I wanted to have the blanket finished by Christmas day.  They had to figure out how many rows I would I have to crochet each day to be finished in time.  We worked it out on December 3rd, so that would mean I would have 22 days to complete the blanket.  This division problem was way more challenging and ended up giving them quite a large remainder.  My next step (whenever we go back to school after all of this snow) will be to have them figure out how to turn the remainder into what fraction of a row I would have to complete each day in addition to the complete rows.  

Not only have I figured out how long this lovely project will take me, I've also been working to see if 192 will allow me to end the blanket at the end of the pattern and how many rows of each color there will be.  The 6 rows actually is the end of the pattern because there are two rows of each color.  To figure out how many rows of each color there will be, I just had to get one-third of the total number of rows 192/3 or just double the number of days it will take to finish the blanket.  So there will be 64 rows of each color in the blanket!  

I've made a little product that includes 6 problems about my own crochet math experience.  You can purchase it from my TpT store {here}

Make sure to go check out the other links on the Math IS Real Life linky party!

Math IS Real Life: Curtains!

MATH IS REAL LIFE

Today I'm linking up with 

for Math IS Real Life!

I've posted my classroom reveal and I really love how my classroom looks this year, but I really wanted to make some curtains for my big wall of windows.  I love my windows after being in the dungeon last year, but I wanted to add a homie feel to my room with the addition of some curtains! Here are the windows before the curtains.

  There are a total of 8 windows but there is only a break in the middle of the wall.  I knew that I would need to make 8 individual curtains - one for each window - because I wouldn't be able to to hand one SUPER long curtain.   I went to school and busted out the measuring tape - math use number 1.

 Each window measured 44 1/2 inches wide and since I only wanted the curtains to be half the length of the window, the length ended up being 32 inches.  I added an inch to each side for seam allowances and got 46 1/2 by 34 inches.  I then did a little multiplication.  46 1/2 X 8 and got 372 inches.  Fabric is sold in yards, though so I had to do a little converting. 372 divided by 36 = 10 1/3 yards.  Here is a look at how I did the math.

With my measurements in hand, I headed to Hobby Lobby to find the perfect fabric to match my cute orange, teal, chevron, and owl room.  This is what I found! Perfect teal chevron!!!!

Then I ran into a problem... The bolt was only 10 yards long.  I would need another 1/3 yard but not just a 1/3 by itself.  I sat with the helpful ladies at the cutting counter trying to figure out how to cut two separate pieces of fabric so that I would have enough for the last window in a single piece of fabric.  Instead of using the 46 1/2 measurement, we rounded up to 48 inches or  1 and 1/3 yards since that would give me a couple of inches for gather and and we could get the correct amount of fabric for each of my curtains.  I ended up getting one piece that was 9 and 1/3 yards and a second piece that was 1 and 1/3 yards.

When I got home, I realized that if I wanted the chevron to go horizontally instead of vertically, then I had to change my measurements again!  I cut the fabric into one yard sections (for the length) using my trusty yardstick, and then I had excess across the top for lots of gather!  When I changed the direction I was cutting the fabric, I was actually able to make 10 curtains that each measured about 46 inches wide. I decided that this was a benefit because then I could overlap the curtains on the rod for extra fabric.  

I decided that I didn't really want to sew, so I used iron on hem tape instead.  I ended up standing at the ironing board for a total of 3 hours over the course of the long weekend! And to take the no sew even further, I hot glued pieces of ribbon to the back of each curtain to use to hang the curtains. 

I took all 10 curtains to school to hang on my wall of windows.  I bought 8 adjusting curtain rods to use to hang the curtains.  Since I had no walls to put the rods between, I had to use some command hooks to solve my problems.  

Now the command hooks I needed come in pack of three, but I needed 2 hooks per window.  So 2 packs would cover 3 windows, 4 packs would cover 6 windows, 6 packs would cover 9 windows.  I only needed 16 hooks, but I had to buy the 6th pack to have enough with 2 leftover.  This is going to be a great math problem for my kids next unit!  I finally got all the rods up with the curtains - some overlapping, and this is the final product! The lighting is terrible because the sun is coming through, but they look great! I'm so happy with how they turned out!

How are you using math in your real life?

Math is "Real Life"

I'm so excited to join up to math IS real life!  A monthly REAL WORLD math blog link-up hosted by 4mulaFun, Fourth Grade Studio, Teaching to Inspire in 5th, AND MissMathDork,

This blog link is about how we use math in the real world in order to show our students that math is valuable outside the classroom.  

My real world math experience happened at the ATT store today. 

 When the hubby and I bought smart phones 2 years ago, we bought the lowest data plan (we were being money conscious).   It worked for us for a while with only an overage here and there.  Lately, however we have been going over our data almost every month.  Each time we go over it costs us $15 extra each.  We decided to head down to the ATT store to explore our data options today.  At the store, the ATT guy looked at our data usage for the past couple of months (I usually use more data, but some months the hubby uses more.).  He gave us 3 options for upgrading our data, as our 200MB plan doesn't even exist anymore.  Each option contains our minutes and texting.

Option 1: 3GB each $139 per month 

Option 2: 4GB shared in a family plan $136 per month

Option 3: 6GB shared in a family plan for $142 per month

Now in order to weigh our options appropriately, I had to ask a question that may seem stupid to some, "How many MB are in a GB?"  

The ATT guy was kind enough to explain that there are 1000 MB in 1 GB.  Holy Cow!  That's a lot of data! Even if we just got 1 GB each we would upping our data by 4 times!!!!  After discussing our options we went with the 4 GB to share.  Now I don't have to worry about whether or not watching that Youtube video is going to cost me $15. We added about $10 a month to our bill, which is cheaper than going over our data and only getting 200 MB more.  

Even as we were sitting there discussing prices and GB vs. MB, all I could think about was, "Look at all this math we are using!!!!" I'm now trying to figure out a way to turn this into a problem for my students to research and determine the best price/deal on a budget.  

How are you using math in your life?