I remember as a little girl always loving to help my mom cook. As I got old enough she would have me help more. She would measure out the sugar and I got to dump it in. Later when I got to start measuring things out, she taught me about fractions. I learned that 1/4 of a cup was smaller than a 1/2 cup. I learned that there are four 1/4 cups in 1 cup. I learned that 1/3 cup plus 1/3 cup equaled 2/3 cup. These were all little thinks I learned along the way from making different recipes. My mom would point them out and I would learn.
As I went to school and learned about fractions in math, I remembered back to cooking with my mom and learning the same things. Fractions weren't hard because I could relate them to cooking. As a teacher I would like to teach middle school math. I can draw from students' background experience with cooking and teach them about fractions. I believe some students have preconceived notions about math and especially fractions. Before they even know what fractions are they believe fractions are hard and they won't be able to do them.
I would introduce fractions by having a cooking lesson. We would discuss measuring things and go through how we would make a specific recipe. After we would talk about how measuring in cooking is the same fractions as in math. This way students would lean on their background experience of cooking to learn about fractions and not their preconceived notions about how hard fractions can be. Drawing from students' background experience and connecting it to what you are teaching helps students have a personal connection to the mathematical material. I know whenever I had a personal connection to what I was learning in my I seemed to understand it more.
Many games introduce negative integers too--like Yahtzee, I think? And some games introduce probability, and other types of activities (like playing certain types of video games) require three-dimensional spatial reasoning. I think that, as you teach in a community, you will find the types of knowledge that are common to the community, and you can use them to build their knowledge of math. Even if it's something like farming, you can use students' knowledge of that to construct relevant math problems. Thanks for your posting!
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