Contextualised maths problems: Santa's cooking gift sets

When it comes to teaching, there's nothing  more satisfying than seeing students get excited about maths as it finally 'clicks' for them. We're all to aware that each student has a different understanding and appreciation of maths. Therefore, it's important we teachers provide different entry points that allow each student to find their own way into a problem and use their own strategies. We need to promote that's it's not a race to the answer, rather they should take the time to think about what they have done before that may help them (our STAR model is handy here) and take risks to develop strategies that suit them.

Using problems that have context that is meaningful to them (so they can to relate to it) is a great way to further engage the students. So here it is, a problem with a Christmas theme:

Father Christmas was testing his favourite recipe while his elves were busy packing childrens' gift sets that Santa promises will have every child cooking up a storm in no time! Each set has 3 knives, 2 wooden spoons, a cutting board, a mini mixer, an apron and of course a Santa cook book, 'Santa's recipes made easy'. 

“Make me 15 sets right away and be quick.” Santa told the elves between mouthfuls of tender, tasty turkey.

The elves groaned: “That is a lot of sorting and packing!”

How many items do the elves have to pack into each set?

How many items will the elves have to collect from the shelves?

We'd love for you to share the results on Facebook: Natural Maths Facebook page

make connection between mathematical ideas and maths and how it’s used in the real world.