Year 8 maths: practise ratio with summer recipes
August does not need a full maths timetable. For a pupil who has just finished Year 8, a few practical ratio questions can provide useful practice without turning the holidays into another school term.
Recipes give ratio a clear purpose: keeping a drink tasting the same, changing the number of portions or sharing ingredients fairly. This August topic guide uses simple examples that work on paper or in the kitchen. Actual ingredients are optional, and an adult should supervise any food preparation.
1. Start by explaining what the parts mean
Write down a pretend squash recipe: one part concentrate to four parts water. Ask your child to explain the ratio before calculating anything.
The key idea is that each part represents the same quantity. If one part is 50 ml, the drink needs 50 ml of concentrate and 200 ml of water. There are five parts altogether, making 250 ml.
Try asking:
- How many parts are concentrate?
- How many parts are water?
- How many parts make the whole drink?
A common mistake is saying that concentrate makes up one quarter of the drink. It is actually one fifth because the whole contains five parts. Drawing five equal boxes, with one labelled concentrate, makes the distinction visible.
2. Scale a recipe using one multiplier
Next, keep the same taste while changing the amount. Start with 100 ml of concentrate and 400 ml of water. Ask how much of each ingredient would make three times as much drink.
Both quantities must be multiplied by three: 300 ml of concentrate and 1,200 ml of water. The total is now 1,500 ml.
Then try a less obvious change: making half the original amount. That needs 50 ml of concentrate and 200 ml of water.
Ask your child to explain why adding 100 ml to both original quantities would not work. The resulting 200 ml to 500 ml simplifies to 2:5, rather than 1:4. Ratio describes a multiplicative relationship, not a fixed difference.
Keep this activity short. Two correctly explained examples are more useful than a page completed by guessing.
3. Work backwards from a total amount
Now change the question. You want 600 ml of a fruit drink with juice and water in the ratio 2:3. How much of each is needed?
Use three steps:
- Add the parts: 2 + 3 = 5.
- Find one part: 600 ÷ 5 = 120 ml.
- Find each ingredient: juice is 240 ml and water is 360 ml.
Check that the ingredients add to 600 ml and that 240:360 simplifies to 2:3.
For another attempt, share 350 g of berries and yoghurt in the ratio 2:5. There are seven parts, so each part is 50 g. The answer is 100 g of berries and 250 g of yoghurt.
4. Finish with an independent explanation
A few days later, offer one fresh question without showing the worked examples: a drink contains juice and water in the ratio 1:5. How much juice is in 900 ml?
The answer is 150 ml. Ask your child to explain how they found it and check the total. If they divide by five, return to the distinction between one ingredient and the whole.
Notice the specific difficulty rather than labelling ratio a weakness. If extra support would help, take the free 2 minute quiz to explore one to one tutoring with GoodGrade Tutors.