What students learn
In a proportional relationship every amount changes by the same factor. If a recipe for 4 pancakes uses 2 cups of flour, then 12 pancakes (three times as many) use 6 cups (three times as much). Students solve each order one of two ways:
- Find the scale factor (order ÷ recipe) and multiply every ingredient by it.
- Find the unit rate (the amount for one serving or one item) and multiply by the order size.
How the game works
The chef walks around the diner with the arrow keys (or a click on the floor). Space takes an order at a table, cooks it at the stove, and serves it. Students can cook several orders in a row and carry two plates at once; extra plates wait on the kitchen counter. Customers arrive smiling and slowly sour the longer they wait, and a customer who runs out of patience storms out with a 1-star review. A correct order earns a star. A wrong one gets a pop-up that shows the right method next to what the student did, and then goes back on the rail to be remade while the customer keeps waiting. Three 1-star reviews close the restaurant.
- Scale a recipe up by a whole-number factor.
- Scale up and down.
- Ratio tables, when the order isn't a whole multiple of the recipe.
- Unit prices at the market.
- Fractional amounts and scale factors like 1½ and ⅔.
Practice mode removes the waiting and the reviews so students can focus on the math.
Worked examples
Scale factor: 4 pancakes use 2 cups of flour. How much for 12?
k = 12 / 4 = 3 2 × 3 = 6 cups
Ratio table: 6 cookies use 4 eggs. How many eggs for 9 cookies?
cookies: 6 3 9 eggs: 4 2 6
Halve to get 3 cookies, then add the rows for 6 and 3.
Unit price: 5 lemons cost $2.50. What do 8 cost?
$2.50 / 5 = $0.50 each 8 × $0.50 = $4.00
The mistake the game is built around
Adding instead of multiplying. "4 pancakes use 2 cups, and 12 is 8 more pancakes, so 10 cups." This additive reasoning is the most common error in proportions. When a student makes it, the pop-up names that exact mistake and shows why every amount has to grow by the same factor. A tape diagram draws the recipe as equal blocks, the order as the same blocks repeated, and the student's amount as a bar beside the correct length.
Ways to use it in class
- Printables. A free worksheet with an answer key and a two-to-a-page exit ticket match this game, ready to print or save as a PDF.
- Practice first. Students play Practice on Level 1 until they can explain their method, then switch to the timed diner.
- Two methods. Ask half the class to solve with scale factors and half with unit rates, then compare.
- Tape diagrams on paper. After each wrong order, students copy the tape diagram from the pop-up into their notes.
- Exit ticket. "A recipe for 3 people uses 2 cups of rice. How much for 7 people?"
Discussion questions
- Why doesn't adding the same amount to every ingredient work?
- When is the unit rate easier than the scale factor? When is it harder?
- What does a scale factor less than 1 mean for a recipe?
Real-world connections
Doubling a recipe, cooking for a crowd, comparing prices at the store (which size is the better deal?), and converting a recipe that serves 4 into one that serves 6.
Standards
CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.7.RP.A.2Recognize and represent proportional relationships between quantities. Every ingredient and every price in the game grows by the same factor as the order.
Access and privacy
En español: the 🌐 Español button in the game's top bar switches everything students see into Spanish, including the recipes, questions and explanations. No accounts, no student data. Plays with the keyboard alone or with a mouse; on a phone, turn it sideways.