Today we decided to try something new when it came to math. It’s our meal planning day, so instead of me doing the planning, I handed it over to Hanna. She’d picked up the Healthy Meals for Less cook book last week at the library. The book claims to share recipes that are under a dollar per serving. I gave her 60 dollars to spend on 7 dinners. The rest was up to her.
She started by skimming through the cookbook looking for recipes that sounded good. She found quite a few recipes, and we discussed some of our favorite inexpensive dinners. We also discussed prices of meat, and how our local prices could change the totals suggested in the book.
She then did the math on each recipe to see how much the whole recipe would cost (instead of just a serving). She realized some looked inexpensive when you go by serving, but when you add it up it’s quite a bit, especially when a dish serves 12! 🙂
She finally made a decision on 7 meals, and then created a list of ingredients she’d need to prepare them. Then we headed to the store. She rounded off most of the prices of each item, to make the math a little easier, and kept a running total of her items.
She then figured out tax on her items. At the end of our shopping trip, her math came up to almost exactly 60 dollars.
When she went through the checkout with her items, she ended up with a bill of $67.59. 🙁 The math was a little off… but she did a lot of math, with no complaints! and I didn’t have to do the meal planning. 🙂 We also had a great conversation about how she could changed her menu to come in under budget. She chose a large beef roast, which was quite expensive. This is the first time we’ve done this exercise. I’m sure the more we do it the more she’ll get a feel for the price of things, and how her choices will affect her budget.
This was a fun way to use math in the real world, throw in a little reading, and life skills and I’d call it a win.
