On Halloween we joined some dear family friends and went trick or treating. We first headed downtown to the Munchkin Masquerade and then walked around a block of houses in their neighborhood. At the end of the evening, after lots of fun and laughs, my boys each brought home a pumpkin pail filled with candy.

By the time we returned for our costume-decked adventures, it was late and time to get ready for bed. So that night we did nothing with the large amount of candy they had collected.

However, the first thing I heard when my 6-year-old woke up the following morning was, “Mama, can we sort the candy?” So the boys poured out their pails of candy onto the floor and we began to sort.

We started by sorting out the candies they could eat from the candies they cannot (having a corn allergy pretty much eliminates most mainstream candy). Don’t worry, though, my boys ended up with more than enough treats that they could eat: a couple of kind friends made sure their pumpkin pails were filled to the rim with allergy-friendly sweet treats (such as THESE, THESE, THESE, and THESE).

We then sorted each of these piles into further piles, separating each type of candy into its own individual stack. Even my 2-year-old got in on the action. He could discriminate among the piles of candy and match whatever was in his hand to one of them. He would then place his piece in the appropriate pile.

Once we had everything sorted, the real mathematical fun began. After we had totals, we calculated the percentage of treats they could eat versus those they couldn’t. We counted which candies we had received the most and the least of. We figured out what proportion of our treats came from our generous friends. We calculated proportions and percentages and fractions. We considered how long the treats would last if each of my boys had one piece a day, and then we calculated how long the stash would last if they ate two, three, four, five, and clear up to ten pieces a day.

With the candy packages right there in front of him, my 6-year-old was able to move them around to assist in him with any of the calculations he couldn’t compute in his head or with his hands.

It was a fun, hands-on way to introduce or build upon a number of mathematical ideas with my boys. Maybe next year we’ll talk about the statistical probability of reaching into their bag and pulling out a particular treat at random. My inner math geek loves thinking about fun ways to teach these concepts in concrete ways that my boys will understand and retain.

Did you do anything particularly fun or educational with your Halloween goodies?