Chocolate Chip Cookie Math

What if you could do your math and eat it too? Chocolate Chip Cookie Math is not only a math lesson but a delicious and fun way to learn about estimation, comparing and contrasting, graphing, procedure, data gathering, organizing information, logical thinking and record keeping!

You will need:
Several brands of store bought chocolate chip cookies
Record sheet for graphing chocolate chips

Lesson:
Have your child wash their hands so they can eat the yummy cookies after they do their estimations.

Have your child take one cookie from the first brand of cookies. Record the brand on your record sheet and then have the child estimate how many chocolate chips are in the cookie. Have him/her pick up the cookie and turn it over so they get a full view of the cookie. After they have their estimation, have them break the cookie apart and actually count the chocolate chips and record the results. Based on this number have them estimate one or two more. Average the results. Repeat this with each brand (though you may want to stop letting them eat at some point hehe!).

When you are done have the student answer these questions:
1. Which brand had the cookie with the most chocolate chips?
2. Which brand had the cookie with the least chocolate chips?
3. Which brand had the highest average of chocolate chips?
4. Which brand had the lowest average of chocolate chips?
5. Which brand do you think had just the right number of chocolate chips?
6. Did these results surprise you? Why?

For extra practice you can have the child average all of the brands together.

For more great math applications in the kitchen try I Use Math in the Kitchen.