Smarties and maths

The Smarties maths challenge was good fun and the Y2s use good questioning and thinking skills as they brainstormed questions and then worked in pairs to find the answers.  Some example questions were: how many Smarites in our box? Is there the same number in each box? Are there always the same number of each colour? If not, which colour do we have the most of? Can my Smarites be shared equally into two groups, 3 groups etc. How much does one Smartie weigh? 

Once they had answered lots of their  questions they made a bar graph of their results and then we recorded everyones findings in a table. We found out that the colour we all had the most of was pink. That the number of Smarites in each box does seem to vary. The smallest number was 39 and the biggest 47 (are we sure all the eating happened at the end?!). It was great to see lots of discussion about what makes an interesting question and many examples of good cooperation to find the answers.