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I recently shared my curmudgeon approach to Halloween, including my desire to be a little less “get-off-my-lawn” and turn aspects of the evening into opportunities, much to my children’s chagrin. One of those opportunities included using Halloween to reinforce math and analytical skills; this post more deeply explores three areas to leverage Halloween into a math lesson.

Sorting and counting candy

For all ages, sort and count the candy they receive. There are multiple ways to sort and compare the same candy, but some ideas would be:

• Color
• Texture: hard, chewy, gummy
• Type: chocolate, fruity
• Brand
• Size

For Younger Kids: Basic sorting and counting will suffice. Afterwards, you can work with your child(ren) to create a simple bar graph using one or two of the more fun sorting methods. If you record the totals in Excel, you can also compare them from year to year.

For Older Kids: Have your child(ren) sort the candy, but make the sorting more complex by combining categories or having them create graphs or charts to show the totals. For example, how many candies are both chocolate and chewy? If they are comfortable using a computer, have them complete this in Excel. Likewise, if you have multiple years of data, you can have them identify trends and make predictions about what they expect to receive in future years.

Tracking costumes

Whether your child is still young enough to trick-or-treat or is opening the door to greet those who come to your house, you can work together to track costumes. This is similar to sorting candy, but happens during the evening rather than afterwards. Some ways to categorize costumes would be:

• Mask, no mask, face paint
• Hat or no hat
• Scary or not scary
• Based on a movie, book, etc
• Main color of the costume

For Younger Kids: This may be harder to focus on while trick-or-treating, but could work particularly well at the start or when you need a break during the evening. You may want to select just one category, limiting yourself to no more than three options, and focus on counting those.

For Older Kids: As with sorting candy, you can have older children predict what they think will be most common in a category and then compare their predictions with the data. This can provide excellent lessons about how we make assumptions and how accurate – or inaccurate – those assumptions may be.

Pumpkins

If you purchase pumpkins for decoration, you can use them to practice measuring circumference. Wrap a flexible measuring tape (or piece of string) around the widest part, seeking to keep it level; then you can measure the length afterwards. Also, read The Pumpkin Book by Gail Gibbons for some fun conversation!

For Younger Kids: You will likely need to guide most of the work, but they can help measure and compare which pumpkin is bigger around. You can extend this further by looking up various records around large pumpkins – or go see one before Halloween at the NC State Fair!

For Older Kids: Older children can work more independently, or you can have them find the circumference by measuring the diameter and using the formula for circumference (pi times diameter). You then can compare their calculated circumference to the string method of measurement; since pumpkins are not perfect circles, comparing their estimate with the actual measurement can become another part of the lesson.

Closing the loop

While the above offer ways to turn Halloween into a math lesson, these activities also open the door to conversations that point toward enduring faith. At a depth that your child is ready to handle, you can connect each of these activities, authentically, to aspects of the Gospel.

• Counting candy can lead to conversations around generosity, specifically God’s generosity in the Gospel and to how Christians are called to be generous. What might generosity look like in their life right now?
• Tracking costumes can lead to conversations about the choices made by familiar heroes and villains. What makes a character’s actions good or evil, right or wrong? Appearances alone do not tell us, and even heroes can make wrong choices. These conversations can point towards the reality of sin in each of our lives and the redemption offered through the Gospel.
• Measuring pumpkins can provide time to notice the variety and order in God’s creation. You can talk about different types of seeds, how plants grow or protect themselves, or simply marvel together at the wide variety of creation that surrounds us.