Favorite Foods: Connecting Math and Social Studies in K-1
˛ú˛âĚýMegan Murray
September 16, 2026
Excursions are freely available sequences of related activities that encourage students to apply the mathematics they are learning to their own and others’ lives and communities. They were developed by the Forum for Equity in Elementary Mathematics to foster authentic connections between the mathematics students are learning in school and their experiences at home and in their communities. This blog illustrates the principles of Excursions, laid out in the introductory blog, in the context of a specific Excursion. It is the fourth in a series that will share the experience and work of field test teachers and students engaging in each of the published Excursions.
Young children never tire of talking about the foods they love (or don’t!). What Are Our Favorite Foods? engages K-1 students in an exploration of their and their families’ favorite foods. The teachers who field tested this Excursion discovered that talking about food and family provided opportunities for deep mathematical thinking and for students to share parts of themselves and their families with one another.
Consider one field test teacher’s experience. Audrey used the suggested children’s literature to launch the Excursion and open up conversations about unfamiliar foods, different food traditions, and how to talk about food preferences with curiosity and respect.
“We read Lunch from Home, which was really important. We talked about people eating different things. You may have never tried it or you’ve tried it and you don’t really like it. What are some ways you could share that with people? We often say, “Don’t yuck somebody’s yum,” so we decided on “I don’t really care for that.” And then we read Everybody Cooks Rice and there was a Vietnamese dish, a garlicy fish sauce, that hooked kids in. One student said “Oh, I’ve had that before” and that’s when the conversation really started to pop off. They were saying things like, “I don’t care for that.” “I’ve never tried that.” and “I really want to try that.”
After reading these books, the class collected data about favorite foods three times. First, students chose their favorite part of their lunch; then, their favorite food in the world; and finally, they asked someone at home about their favorite food. Each time, they collected the data and sorted it in several different ways, considering what each sort revealed about the group. (See two sorts of the same set of data, below.) They counted and compared the number of responses, and used numbers and an equation to describe the data. They decided on one sort to represent and post in their classroom.
8 + 11 = 19
7 + 12 = 19
Because 5- and 6-year-olds are often very tied to their own particular piece of data, and/or to their own experience (e.g. “But pancakes are for breakfast!”), working with categorical data can be challenging. As students placed their data, Audrey encouraged them to describe why it belonged there. For example, “Maggie just asked, is a drink a food? What do you think?” Or, “People are wondering why pancakes are in the dinner category. Eli, can you explain why you put it there?” The goal was not to arrive at one “right” sort, where everyone agrees on each placement. The work is thinking through different ideas about where a piece of data should go and explaining your reasoning.
As students sorted and represented the different sets of data, they began to notice both similarities and differences. Some foods appeared again and again, while others were unfamiliar to many.
“We had a lot of repeats, a lot of chocolate, a lot of cake, tons of pizza. But there were foods that some kids didn’t know, like calamari. The student had drawn a really cool picture, and we searched to see what they look like. He was able to explain what it was, and how he liked one part better than the other. Another unfamiliar food was rice noodles, which was from a Chinese family in my classroom. An Indian family said green curry, and a family from the UK said steak and ale pie. The kids did a really nice job drawing the pictures, and I brought up actual pictures. It was really nice.”
These conversations provided opportunities for students share – and for their peers and their teacher to learn – about food that was important to them and their families in ways that were quite powerful. For Audrey, one student’s response highlighted the impact these discussions were having.
“I have a student who is of Chinese descent and at snack time he has these interesting, authentic snacks. But he is incredibly embarrassed about them. He eats the snacks from inside his lunchbox, so nobody can see them. We’ve been trying all year to get him to feel comfortable and share, and I feel like this Excursion really made a big difference. His was one of the families that put rice noodles as their favorite, and that was something that was really interesting to the kids when we were talking about foods that we didn’t really know. He got really excited to share all about rice noodles and how his family prepares them and it just built this excitement for him. So I think it was a really impactful experience for him.”
The activities in this Excursion enabled this child to talk with his class about the food that was important to him and his family, and to embrace and feel proud of what had – for most of the year – been an embarrassment to him. In fact, Audrey was surprised at the way this opened up conversations about community and culture, in a way she was excited to pursue further.
“I was really thinking about food being a gateway to understanding things like culture and identity. I saw this visual and it was like an iceberg, and food was at the tip, on the surface where you can see it, but there’s so much underneath. I think this was a nice way to start a conversation that will get us deeper, to that underneath part.”
What we heard from teachers who field tested the Favorite Foods Excursion, and other Excursions across the grades, echoed the goals laid out in the introductory blog. The mathematics was accessible, deep, and rich. Students were more engaged and exhibited persistence. More children contributed to whole class discussions, expanding the voices heard in the classroom. Teachers learned more about students and their families, and students learned more about each other. Look for future blogs, which will take up these same themes in the context of other Excursions.
References
Dooley, N. (1991). Everybody cooks rice. (P. J. Thornton, Illus.). First Avenue Editions.
Stein, J. D. (2022). Lunch from home (J. Li, Illus.). Penguin Random House.