Halloween Candy Graphs
Well, if the kids are getting all that candy for Halloween, we might as well learn a little bit of math before we eat it, right? Plus, they think it's fun to compare who got what, so this activity lends a little purpose to the sibling rivalry. We got ready to sort, count, and graph our candy, then analyze our results: most, least, and so on.
How we did it:
I had the kids work in separate areas so no one's candy got mixed up with anyone else's. Each kid dumped their candy out into a pile. I asked them to make some hypothesis while observing the pile: "Which type of candy do you think you have the most of? The least?"
They had quite the variety, which would make for a very extensive graph, so I asked them to choose five different types of candy and sort them into piles.
Next, we used the ruler do draw a graph on the paper. My kids (ages 6 and 8) wrote numbers on the left side of the graph.
Then they wrote the names of the candy at the bottom of the graph.
We decided to add some vertical lines to keep our graph bars clearly marked. Then the kids counted each type of candy and marked a line on the graph. We finished by coloring the bars on our graph.
Then we analyzed our data: I asked them questions, like:
"Which candy did you have the most of?"
"Which candy did you have the least of?"
"Did you have the same amount of any two or more types of candy?"
"Were your hypotheses correct? If not, what is different now that you see the results on the graph?"
Then, of course, we each had a piece of candy, because you can only work with the stuff for so long without sampling some, right? Happy Halloween!