So Halloween is over. The pumpkins are rotting. The decorations are dripping wet. The costumes are dirty. The kids are tired and you are stuck with a bucket load of candy that no-one with any sense could eat through by the new year! What to do…

Why not take advantage of all that motivating candy and use it to talk about, and practice math! Make your kids earn their Halloween treat with the following questions:

1. SORTING: How much of each type of candy did you get?
2. COUNTING: What is the total?
3. ODD or EVEN: Do you have an odd or even amount of candy?
4. ADDITION: How much candy did the kids get in total?
5. EQUALITY: Compare the chocolate treats with the non-chocolate treats. Which is more? Less?
6. SKIP-COUNTING: If you are allowed to eat 1, (or 2, or 5!) treats a week; how many weeks until you run out of candy?
7. CALENDAR / PATTERNS: If the pattern repeats, how many months is that? Years???????
8. ORDERING: Order the candy from least to greatest in terms of the amount of sugar each contains!
9. DIVISION: If you had to share your candy with the whole family (4 people) how many pieces would each get? What if the cat was included?! (Divide by 5!)
10. MULTIPLICATION: Open one bag of fuzzy peaches…if every bag has that amount; how many fuzzy peaches do you have?
11. PROBABILITY: What’s the probability of reaching into the candy bag and getting a Mars bar?
12. RATIOS: If you have to give your Mom two candies for every one that you eat; how many would she get if you ate 10 candies? How many candies would be gone in total?
13. FRACTIONS: What fraction of a big smarties is a small smarties box? What about coffee crisp?

Think they won’t enjoy doing math to earn a candy? You’re wrong! They will be fully invested in the problems because it pertains to them! So don’t wallow in yucky November and sugar hang-overs…enjoy the aftermath of Halloween!

Have other ideas of Halloween math problems? Post them in the comments section below!