| Do all the sweeteners in candy corn leave you | | | | |
| wondering whether or not it is healthy for | | | | How much does each individual piece of candy |
| your kids? In some ways, it just might be. | | | | cost? That is an excellent math/life problem. |
| Candy corn just might boost thinking skills | | | | Which store charges the best price? Try |
| and improve grades! After letting them eat | | | | weighing the candy corn - or maybe try |
| their fill, have your kids use the sweet | | | | weighing the kids after they have eaten a few |
| treats for some math exercises this Halloween | | | | pounds of it! |
| season. | | | | |
| | | | A huge bucket chock full of the sweet little |
| On a very basic level, the orange, yellow, | | | | rascals provides an excellent guessing |
| and white parts can help teach colors and | | | | estimation math exercise. And the whole thing |
| shapes. Mix them with some M&M's for a | | | | could be awarded to the kid with the best |
| sorting exercise for little fingers. Have | | | | guess. There is some mathematical way of |
| children rearrange them together to make new | | | | making a pretty accurate guess. Is the candy |
| shapes. | | | | worth the trouble of doing the geometry |
| | | | calculations? Hopefully the sweet candy corn |
| Need an exercise that's a smidgen more | | | | prize will be suitably motivating. |
| challenging? You could try using the small | | | | |
| candy corn for board game markers. Candy corn | | | | Some geometry students might enjoy the |
| bingo is a lot of fun - with the numbers on | | | | Internet Math Challenge from the University |
| the grid providing answers to equations and | | | | of Idaho. The challenge involves assuming the |
| the candies marking the spots. Kids can graph | | | | piece of candy is a perfect cone and |
| different amounts of candy corn. Making | | | | reconfiguring its color's dimensions. With |
| spinners from cardboard with the arrows | | | | each stripe of color being 1/3 the height, |
| shaped like candy corn can provide another | | | | determine what fraction of the total height |
| fun way of working with numbers. | | | | each color would occupy, if the candy corn |
| | | | colors were flipped. |
| Have you ever noticed that candy corn - after | | | | |
| flipped on their sides - look like "greater | | | | Mathematics and candy corn unite in the world |
| than" and "less than" signs? Kids may enjoy | | | | of imagination. Check out the book The Candy |
| unequal math much more when using candy for | | | | Corn Contest by Patricia Reilly Giff for some |
| the answers. | | | | interesting reading and exercises in logic. |
| | | | In the book, a student can't stop thinking |
| Next, what about a couple story problems? | | | | about his class contest. Whoever estimates |
| Tommy has 25 pieces of candy corn. If he is | | | | the right number of yellow-and-orange candies |
| given his brother's 20 pieces, how many will | | | | in the jar gets to keep them all. The only |
| he have in all? Since the math story is quite | | | | catch is that each guess requires the kid to |
| versatile, candy corn is still helpful when | | | | read a page of a library book. |
| the degree of difficulty is stretched a | | | | |
| little. Maybe the kids should find the square | | | | Talk about brain food! Maybe candy corn will |
| root of the number of pieces of candy corn | | | | turn into the poster candy for teachers all |
| that Tommy has. Or maybe Tommy's candy corn | | | | over. Not likely. But, maybe, adding a little |
| savings account is going to grow | | | | tasty entertainment to a math exercise may |
| exponentially over the entire month of | | | | develop thinking and learning. It could also |
| October until Halloween! Lucky Tommy. (And | | | | give the old excuse "the dog ate my homework" |
| Tommy's dentist too...) | | | | a bit more credence. |