Candy Math -- A Halloween Tradition

If you are going to be trick or treating this year, I wanted to post this now so that you can gather some supplies if you like.

I make myself feel better about all that candy consumption by turning Halloween into an extended, hands on, math lesson for my children. This can take on a number of forms. In the past, we have counted, sorted and graphed our candy. We have used bar graphs and line graphs and venn diagrams. You can do addition and subtraction, and even division as the candy is shared. Since Halloween falls on the weekend this year, I may have Dad sit down with the oldest and do a little Excel lesson to expand our candy graphing, too.

We are not quite un-schoolers, but often I find that our homeschooling works best when we can take what we are doing in real life and make it fit our curriculum. We will wind up skipping many of the graphing lessons in Saxon Math because we have already covered the material with candy math.

Last year, B-Mama discussed Halloween etiquette, and I will surely be talking to my children before hand about kindness, respecting lawns, and thank yous. I will also take Red's advice and give my kids a real meal before trick or treating and tell them how candy on an empty stomach can make you feel. I think our "Health, Safety and Manners" course will come to real life as well!