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Eight math activities to try while making a 4th of July cake
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Flag cake photo, Martha Stewart.comAs you prepare your grocery list for this holiday weekend, consider adding the ingredients for the ever-popular Flag Cake. A simple vanilla cake covered in cream cheese frosting and decked out with raspberries (or strawberries) and blueberries, this summer delight will please the whole crowd and provide your young children with eight magnificent ways to practice their math skills. Math first, recipe to follow:
1. Pattern-Making
The flag is a perfect template for pattern-making! Plan out loud how you will decorate the cake, indicating the parts that will have a row of berries and the parts that will not. “Berries, no berries” is the pattern here, and it pays to repeat the pattern words out loud as much as possible, to help your child get the hang of it. If s/he is already a pattern-pro, budget in some time to experiment with more complicated patterns on the cutting board beforehand.
2. Counting
How many eggs? How many cups of flour? How many minutes to bake? How many raspberries? How many blueberries? How many slices? How many forks? How many plates?
3. Grouping/Skip Counting
Arrange the fruit on a plate or cutting board in groups of two, five, or ten. (Pick one and stick with it.) Then practice skip counting by that number, pointing to each group as you go. If your child is new to skip counting, start with twos, and whisper the skipped number to support their understanding. It would sound like, “one-two, three-four” and so on.
4. Exploring Shapes
What shape is the cake pan? What shape are the eggs? How about the salt container? What shape are the blueberries? Can we use the fruit to make a square? How about a long, skinny rectangle?
5. Adding One/Subtracting One
If we put one more raspberry on, how many will there be? If we take away one blueberry, how many will be left?
6. Measuring
Pull out the measuring cups and spoons and enlist your child’s help in scooping and leveling the dry ingredients. Talk about the fractions you might see on the ½ cup, for example, and demonstrate how to measure carefully.
7. Estimating
How many scoops of flour do you think it will take to fill up a cup? How many minutes do you think it will take for the oven to preheat? How many strawberries do you think will fit across the cake in a row? Do you think more blueberries than strawberries will fit? Why? How many slices of cake do you think we will be able to cut if we make them big? How about if we cut them small?
8. Telling Time/Measuring Time
What time was it when you started measuring the ingredients? What time was is it when you put the cake in the oven? What time was it when you served the cake? How long did it take to bake the cake? How long to cool? How long did it take to eat the cake?
And now, the recipes.
Flag Cake Recipes: Feel free to use sliced strawberries in place of raspberries, or really any red and blue combo you can think up!
Martha Stewart’s classic flag sheet cake recipe
Cooks.com’s recipe (uses a box cake mix)
Ina Garten’s recipe
Enjoy!
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