lrk’s blog

Group size:
5 children and one adult (parent helper if possible)

Teaching resources:
Digital camera (optional)

Equipment:

• smoothie maker or blender
• extension power cord (if needed)
• spoon
• spatula
• cleaning cloth and spray
• cups (5 or more)
• electric scales (optional)
• measuring cup (optional)

Ingredients:

• milk (eg a litre)
• vanilla ice-cream (eg a litre)
• fruit – such as 3 ripe bananas, lge can of apricots or peaches, etc

Method:
I like the freedom of students making these ‘by sight’ (good for risk taking – theirs and yours!). A couple of large scoops of ice-cream, some fruit, some milk. Some more milk, more fruit etc until it looks and tastes right. The main thing is getting them to start by adding small amounts, bit by bit.
You can get the kids to measure and weigh the ingredients as they make it (so they’ll have their own recipe at the end!), estimating how much they think they’ll need and adding more of one or another ingredient if needed.

Follow-on activities: 

1. children write up their recipes and publish in class or school newsletter (language: writing procedural texts)
2. children calculate ingredients and cost for larger batch size to sell as a fund raiser (maths: estimation, measurement, money, multiplication)
3. children use digital photographs for a class recipe book (printed or electronic using Powerpoint) (IT: digital images, powerpoint, word processing).