Math Candy

The kids had a fantastic time Trick or Treating last night. We were out for about two hours, walking to and fro and hither and yon. We met up with some friends for the last hour, and a great time was had by all.

Aren't they handsome?

A note on the weapons: This was the first year I even considered letting the boys use a gun for any reason. What made me change my mind? My kids are now old enough to understand that a gun will really, forever, without a doubt, never coming back, kill someone. It can kill anyone- a friend, a cousin, a stranger, a Mom or Dad...anyone. Now that I know they understand that, I'm ok with them pretending to be a gangster. I've already shared that my kids want to be ninjas when they grow up. Imagine my surprise when Anthony decided to be a ninja for Halloween.

Our two hours of begging trick or treating resulted in a ridiculous amount of loot. It's really embarrassing to admit this. I want to point out that we will not eat all this candy in a week. Or even a month. Possibly even this year.

On to the math!!!

I wanted to introduce the concept of percentages to the boys. Neither of them have really covered them before, so it was only a basics introduction for the kids.

 

The pile o' loot.

 



 

Sorting out the candy.

 

 

First, we sorted our loot into categories. We chose eight categories for our candy.

 

Then we tallied each type of candy, taking time to estimate the amount of chocolate.

 



Then we prepared our pie chart. First, we drew a circle, and then we figured the percentages for each type of candy. Anthony kind of checked out on this part, but Jerimiah seems to have a basic understanding of what we did.

Finally, we had a quick lesson on Word, and I showed the boys how to insert and create a pie chart.

We wrote down some facts about what we learned from our pie chart as well.

Or final activity with our candy was to estimate and then weigh.

What's your estimate? Jerimiah estimated 5 lbs, and Anthony estimated 8.4 lbs. The actual weight (in a paper bag) was 7.4 lbs. Crazy, right?

Hope you all had a great Halloween!