Creating a Halloween Candy Graph

When Halloween is over, what can we do with all that candy besides eat it for months? After Halloween take a look at your children’s stash from the night’s activities and spill all of it on the floor.   Ask children if they want to easily SEE how many different pieces they have in their haul. How can you do this? Make a Candy Graph...here's what you need and how to do it.

Materials you will need:

Halloween candy, large piece of paper, and marker

What to do:

  A few days before trick or treating, prepare a paper for graphing. Draw a straight vertical column of two inch squares the same distance from each other all the way up the column. Each square will hold one bag of candy. It is important to have squares equal distance from the others so the height of the candy columns can be correctly compared.

     After placing the candy on the floor, separate into piles of candy by type.

To graph, carefully print the name of the type of candy for each column based on your piles of candy. Although your young child may not read yet, you are showing how reading and writing are used.

  Start with your children’s favorite candy for column one. Place one candy in each square starting at the bottom and count as you go up the column. Place the second favorite candy in column two, etc.  Discuss the sizes, shapes, and colors.

  When all of the columns are full, it is time to discover and discuss what the bar graph shows.  First, count each type separately. What type has the most? Is it also their favorite? What type has the least? Are there two the same height or close? Why do you think people give out more of one type of candy?  Point out how easy it is to talk about something when the materials are organized in a graph rather than a big pile all mixed up.

How Will This Help My Children?

  Graphing is a mathematical idea that uses another way to see the parts of a big picture.  Using a bar graph helps young children to count, be organized in the placement and comparison of objects, see different attributes of objects, and increase math and science vocabulary and thinking.

What Else Can We Do?

   Candy can be graphed by sizes, with or without nuts, gum flavors, types, or colors.

Small toys like cars and Legos, cereal, money (with close supervision), rocks on the beach, or leaves can also be graphed.

  Good books about graphing concepts are More or Less, Three Little Firefighters, and Dave’s Down-to-Earth Rock Shop, by Stuart J. Murphey and More, Fewer, Less, by Tana Hobin at local libraries. 

Photos: http://www.pics4learning.com.jpg

Retired educator Jean Hetrick, member of Grandparents Teach, Too, presented this activity. For more fall activities to help your children succeed in school and have a life time of learning see the authors’ book Learning Through the Seasons in museums, bookstores, and in E-book form atSmashwords.com.

Listen to this activity online at the WNMU Podcasts