Leftover Candy Canes? Do some 3 Act Math!
So here we are after Christmas and I still have boxes of candy canes sitting in my pantry. I don’t want to eat them and I don’t want my kids to eat them….so let’s do some 3 Act Math with them instead.
Candy Cane Act 1
- What do you notice?
- What do you wonder?
- Focus question: “Which piece has more?”
Act 2
- Which piece do you think has more?
- What information do you need to be able to answer the focus question?
Act 3
This is where the fun of the math comes in. Measurement is a difficult area for kids because a number line (or any kind of ruler) is not instinctive. Watch the short video below to see what kids do when first using them:
I know it is hard to see in the video but, he counts the ‘tick marks’ instead of counting the space between. So he says that piece of candy cane is 5 inches when it is really only 4. Here is a picture to show you how he counted.
I didn’t correct him right away because that wasn’t the focus of this ‘lesson’ (after I shot the video we did discuss it). I was happy to see that he didn’t just say that piece was 7 inches which is another common misconception young children have. So watch for those misconceptions when doing this task with children. According to the Common Core standards this task would work great to meet measurement standards in 2nd grade, which is the first mention of measuring lengths in ‘standard units’ because that is when children are ready to move into understanding a number as a measurement versus a number as a quantity.
I love this task because who hasn’t shared a candy cane before and had to make the decision about which piece is bigger??? Our instinct tells us that the straight one is bigger, so I love that this task allows you to get kids to start questioning their intuition. Watch the video below of my two boys’ initial thoughts on this task and then how my 7 year old used the pictures in Act 2 to determine which piece was larger:
About The Author
This whole business of kids and the word “more” is fascinating. To little kids the word is all they have for comparing the sizes or amounts of stuff, and all they have to go on is what they have made of the various uses of the word by the people (other kids and adults) around them. So they do their best, and use the word based on what they see.
I am reminded of my first kid, at under 2 years old, He was in his pushchair on a walk and as we passed a field behind a wall I lifted him up to see the cows in the field. His eyes lit up and he pointed and said “cat”.
Awesome Christina! I am definitely going to teach this in my class! Have you developed any other 3 Acts?
Thanks, Teresa. The only other one I’ve written up can be found here:
https://staging.therecoveringtraditionalist.com/first-3-act-math-tasks/
I have lots of them in my head, just need time to do them out in the classroom and then write them up.