Candy Math

November 1st, the day after Halloween, is our traditional "Candy Math" day.  Today was no different.  It is fun to me when the kids work on one project continuously for hours.  There are no breaks, no interruptions, no asking for snacks - it's full on concentration.  My favorite kind of learning - when they don't realize the extent of their "fun inquiring" as one task leads to another question and digging for an answer.
They each dumped out their bags of candy and sorted them out in bowls.  Then they compared what each other had - same, different.  Of course they have to know 'who had the most' and 'how many total pieces of candy' were collected.  As they sorted, counted, calculated, and categorized they also read, alphabetized, recognized letters (Lilly), multiplied (Micah) and divided (Micah).  Their teamwork got them to the grand prize answer:  131 total pieces of candy!
Then they each got 10 for their special bowls.

My favorite activity:  They alphetbetized the 'candy bar' category.  Then Micah divided the white board into 10 equal sections and then wrote the names that Lilly spelled out (Lilly ready the letters of all 10 types of candy bars).