If you love visiting the shops, cafe’s and restaurants along Santa Cruz Avenue in Menlo Park as much as I do, you have probably heard of Le Boulanger. Bakeries such as Le Boulanger are great places to go enjoy a delicious meal and encourage your children to apply their mathematical knowledge. Practice probability and proportions with the exercise ideas below.
by Mathin’ Catherin, March 25, 2013
Soups, Sandwiches, and Probability
I visited Le Boulanger the other day and came up with some great math problems your math-crazed kid can do to apply their knowledge to the real world. Le Boulanger has great sandwiches, soups, and salads. Look at the menu and see what proportion of the salads have chicken in them. Alternatively, if you get a sandwich, cut it into quarters and ask your child how much is left after you have each had a quarter. Speaking of sandwiches, look at the menu and see how many sandwiches have cheese in them, and how many different types of cheeses does Le Boulanger offer in their sandwiches. Ask your child what the probability of randomly choosing a sandwich with cheese in it. Follow that idea even further and explore what the probability of randomly choosing a sandwich with jack cheese. The possibilities are endless!
Time for Dessert
If you love dessert, you will love these problem ideas. If one chocolate croissant costs $2.65, how much would two cost? Or, if I wanted 1 bear claw ($2.65 each) and 2 chocolate croissants, how much, to the nearest dollar, would it cost. When you are looking in the display of pastries, getting ready to order, count how many pastries have fruit in them, how many have chocolate? Take those numbers and create a proportion of pastries with chocolate, and the proportion of pastries that have fruit in them. Make sure to taste all the pastries you are calculating the proportions for — yummy!