Cooking Disponible en español

Chocolate Chip Cookies for Sharing

Making your own cookies is a great way to practice the math skill of fair sharing, or making equal groups!

Activity Summary

Make your own cookies using our recipe or even with a slice-and-bake dough! The tips included with this recipe will help you to practice some fair sharing skills and have conversations about how to split the cookies equally. 

Recipe

Ingredients

1 box yellow cake mix

½ cup vegetable oil

2 eggs

2 cups chocolate chips

(Note: These math tips work with any cookie recipe, or with a slice-and-bake roll of prepared cookie dough!)

Materials

Cups for measuring ½-cup and 1-cup amounts

Directions

  1. Everyone washes their hands with soap and water while counting to 20 before starting to cook.
  2. Preheat oven to 350°F.
  3. Mix together cake mix, vegetable oil, and eggs in a medium bowl.
  4. Stir in the chocolate chips.
  5. Spoon tablespoon-sized balls of dough evenly spaced onto baking sheet. 
  6. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until bottoms and sides of cookies are golden brown.
  7. Remove baking sheet from oven. Transfer cookies onto a cooling rack or plate. Allow to cool before eating.
  8. Repeat steps 4 through 6 with remaining dough. 

Math Tips

  • Once you’ve made the cookies, try a couple of ways of sharing them, then count how many cookies each person gets to see if that way is fair (sharing between two people is easiest for young children).
  • Make two piles of cookies, one for you and one for your child (or one to eat now and one to eat later). Ask your child to count the piles to make sure you both have the same amount. It’s okay if the amounts are different because then your child can help figure out how to make this way of sharing fair.
  • Have your child divide the cookies onto two plates, one at a time until the cookies are gone, trying to put equal amounts of cookies on each plate. After they are done, have them count to see if there are equal amounts on each plate.
  • If you have an odd number of cookies to share between two people, have a conversation about how to give everyone a fair amount. For example, what happens if you break the last cookie in half?
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