Days before holidays provide complete workout

My first blogs were published twice in cyberspace, but somehow they never made it to our math forum. I decided to share what I originally blogged and get your feedback anyways.

Holiday breaks often present unique opportunities for middle schoolers making sense out of practical math problems. A couple of days before Thanksgiving the students and I brainstorm the foods we feast on. Next, we'll compose 7-to-9 course menus that will feed up to 12 people. Then, with $200 to spend, student pairs rummage through the grocery pages to identify food items and prices that satisfy their selected menus and budget. Some pairs cut out the food items from these pages to illustrate their table settings. Not surprisingly, the students are engaged in math talk as they demonstrate the depth of their proportional reasoning skills by using unit rates to figure out how much they spend altogether and per person. This activity also allows me to pre-assess their ability to keep and maintain a checkbook registry.