Baking Equivalent Equations

After working on number sense all year we were ready to find out if they could make equivalent equations.  We were pretty confident that they would.  But with each new introduction, we have really tried to make it a real world experience.

Equivalent equations...equivalent equations...
We decided to go with cookies because in a few weeks we will begin our cookie story problem unit.

Jess and I broke the class in two.  Each group worked at a different bakery.  We let them pick their bakery name :)  The bakeries received one equation.  They had to set up their cookie sheet to represent the equation.

Then they had to decide if their cookie sheet equations were equivalent.

Luckily, this was pretty easy for them. So we quickly jumped to equivalent equations with a missing addend.

We made up little bakery stories to go along with each problem.

Looking back on the lesson, we felt like it was a good introduction to the skill.  They had a purpose to the skill but also a lot of background knowledge to understand how to solve the problems.

Do you have any good tricks to teach this skill?