Cookie Count Time: 1 - 5 lessons

Years: K - 6

Summary:

Children have a strong desire to make fair shares. This lesson capitalises on that desire by finding fair ways
to make equal shares when presented with various plates of cookies. Challenges occur at a range of levels
and the activity provides a reason for discussing fractions. The lesson is perfectly complemented by the
children's story The Doorbell Rang, by Pat Hutchins, so the whole experience can become a very rich
integrated unit.

This lesson also links to Lesson 10, Bob's Buttons.

Resources required:
This lesson investigates the 'iceberg' of the task shown.

 Paper plates or scrap paper

 Poly Plug or counters
 The Doorbell Rang, Pat Hutchins, Harper Collins

Content Outcomes\Links To Curriculum Documents

 whole number operations

 counting strategies
 multiples
 fair shares
 division concept - sharing
 remainders
 fractions
 estimating number
 measuring weight, capacity and time

Lesson Stages

1. Story Shell
2. Challenge 1: 2 Friends
3. Discussion
4. Challenge 2: 4 Friends
5. Challenge 3: 6 Friends
6. Threading: Challenges over time
7. Playdough Cookies
8. Baking Real Cookies

Lesson Notes

Special thanks to Chris Humphries, Renmark Junior Primary School, for exploring several aspects of this
lesson, adding the Playdough Cookies and supplying many photos.
1. Story Shell

The well known Pat Hutchins book The Doorbell Rang is a

great way to start this lesson, especially with younger
students. But if you don't have the book you can still
suggest the scenario of 'dad' baking cookies for a party
and telling everyone that they have to share them
equally (or fairly). Add the surprise that the number of
guests keeps changing just before the cookies are about
to be eaten, and you have the context of the problem.
I just read the task card to my Year 2 and we
started from there. We used 80 as the number
Red Poly Plug make great cookies.
of cookies but next time I might start with
This is a plate of 40.
about half that.
2. Challenge 1: 2 Friends Kids seem to love popping plugs out of
the board, so I decided to tell my class
Okay, let's pretend Dad baked 80 to pop out any number of cookies (red
cookies and there are just two friends. plugs) they wanted onto the plate.
How many cookies will they each get? There were four in a group and the
Your group has to work out the answer only rule was they couldn't pop
and be able to explain how you did it. out all the plugs in their board. Then
A lot of students knew the answer but found each person estimated the number of
it hard to explain how they worked it out. It cookies on the plate before the group
took some time for students to work had to find the actual total in at least
together instead of all wanting to be 'the two ways. Then we got on with the
leader'. sharing.
This group had several goes at dividing their 80 cookies
into 2 groups. In the end they decided to take it in turns
to take one each and ended up with three piles.
Then they divided the 3rd pile in half again, adding half
to the 1st pile and the other half to the 2nd pile.

This group worked really well together. Most of them

knew the answer before they began the task. They put
their cookies into groups of 5 so each person had four
groups of 5. Then they took it in turns to put groups of 5
cookies onto the 2 plates.
They recorded it as: 40 + 40 = 80.

Group 3 put the 80 cookies in a circle on the floor. Split

the circle in half (by estimating where ½ was), put each
half onto a plate and then counted each pile to make
sure there were 40 on each plate. They were pretty
close. 39 on 1 plate and 41 on the other.

The fourth group put their cookies into groups of 10,

counted by 10s to check there were 80 counters. Then
they took it in turns to put groups of 10 onto each plate
until all the cookies were gone.
3. Discussion

One of the key questions that guides a mathematician's work is Can I check this another way?. A situation
like this where the students are confident of the answer is perfect for encouraging students to ask this
question. The examples above are all from the same class. Clearly each group did have a different way.
Sharing their methods to round off this part of the lesson validates both the alternatives and the
expectation that students should look for alternative approaches to a problem.

4. Challenge 2: 4 Friends

A mathematician also looks at a problem just solved and asks What happens if...?. In this context, and of
course in the context of the story book, a natural question is what happens if there are more friends, four
for example.
The second time we did it as a whole class using students as the 'friends' sitting in the middle of
the mat with the rest of the class sitting around the outside. This was much better. Most
students remembered from the first lesson that 40 + 40 = 80 and that we could just count out 40
counters for each 'friend'. They did this and there were no cookies left over.

Two more students joined the middle making 4 friends altogether.

Some of the ideas students had to divide the cookies into 4 groups were:

 Put them all into one pile again and each person take it in turns to take 1 cookie each
until they were all gone.
 One student suggested that they divide their pile of 40 cookies into 2 equal groups, and
give one to a 'new friend' and the other student do the same.
 Another student suggested we put them all back into the middle and put them into
groups of 10. Then each student could take a group of 10 cookies until they were all
gone. Then count your pile to make sure everyone has the same amount.

5. Challenge 3: 6 Friends

We had 6 students in the middle and the others

around the outside. All students were engaged
in the problem for a fair while, but in the end
there were only a handful who were
determined to solve it. The problem was 80
cookies shared between 6 students.

The 'friends' took 10 counters each, but there

It was an 'aha' moment, when they decided
to divide the 2 cookies into thirds
so there would be no left overs!
wasn't enough for another 10 each. There were
lots of ideas on what to do next, such as, take
one each, take two each, count how many are
left on the plate. Students decided to take 2
more each and then 1 more each until there
were only 2 cookies left. After further
discussions students decided that they could
break the 2 cookies into 1/3s, then every one
would get a share of the last two cookies. They
didn't like the idea of having any cookies 'left
over'. In total all 6 students got 131/3 cookies
 each.

6. Threading: Challenges over time

Threading
What happens if ...? continues the challenges. The number of cookies can be changed and so can the
number of guests, but the challenge of finding the number of cookies for each person stays the same.
Therefore, Cookie Count is a rich task with the feature that the structure of the problem remains constant
but the challenge in it changes with each different plate of cookies or new number of people at the
party.That makes it a candidate for threading into the curriculum for a few minutes a day, two or three
times a week over several weeks. Threading is a powerful curriculum model which allows genuine time for
the students to construct their own learning. The students do not become bored with the activity and, in
fact, find security in the familiar aspects of the challenge.

Teachers can offer questions such as:

  There are 24 cookies. Work out the number of cookies for each guest in these cases: 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8,
12, 24 guests.
 There are 24 cookies. Work out the number of cookies for each number of guests from 1 up to 24.
 There are 3 guests. Work out the number of cookies for each guest in these cases: 1, 2, 3, 4, ..., 23,
24 cookies.

or the students can create their own questions each day, perhaps resulting in greater challenges than
teachers might expect.

Backwards Questions
Examples are:

 There were 5 friends and each one received 62/5 cookies. How many cookies could have been on
the plate to start with?
 There were 5 friends and each one received a whole number of cookies and 1/5. How many cookies
could have been on the plate to start with?
 There were some friends and each of them received a whole number of cookies and 1/6. How many
friends could there have been and how many cookies could there have been on the plate to start
with?

Software
If you have the Maths Lab 1 or 2 CD-ROMs in your school they have an activity called Monster Share.
Students have to share the food equally with the monsters. Every game has a different amount of
monsters and/or food.

It is better when there are 2 or 3 students at one computer because there is more interaction,
talking and helping each other work out the problems.

Opportunism

I work in a rural area with lots of citrus

orchards. One day a student came in with a bag
of tangelos to share with the class. Cookie
Count all over again ... and we got to eat the
maths.

7. Playdough Cookies
Give each child a lump of playdough and ask
them to estimate how many cookies they could
make about the size of a 20¢ piece. Jesse
estimated 40, then made her cookies and
recorded that she made 23.

Collect all the cookies into a class tub. Record

everyone's estimate of the total number of
cookies.

Now let's find out how many there

really are. How many ways can you
think of to do that?
Continue the estimation and discussion based
around the number of cookies there will be for
each child when they are shared.
Mine suggested that the first thing we should do was take ten each. I asked them to arrange
their 10 so I would 'just be able to look and know' how many there were. It was interesting to see
the different ways students arranged their 10 cookies.

8. Baking Real Cookies

Of course the lesson is crying out for a 'cooking class' as a big finish. Sure it takes a bit of organisation - and
perhaps a few helpers - but it's worth if for all the maths related to purchasing the ingredients and the
measuring and ... and for the afternoon tea!