A few days after the 100th day of school we had a really fun math activity. It involved tootsie roll pops and tally marks! First, we had to make sure we had enough for every student (12 total). Then, we discussed if 12 was an Even Steven number or an Odd Todd number. Afterwards, I asked if anyone could sort these tootsie roll pops into equal groups. Their minds started racing! Once we figured out one way of sorting them then another kid would raise their hand & let us know there was yet another way to sort them into equal groups! This went on until we exhausted all of our options. I was very impressed with the crew! Now, it was time to eat our tasty lollipops. The challenge was to see how many licks it took to get to the center of the tootsie roll pop. Every time they took one lick they then had to document it on their chart using a tally mark for every lick. They knew that each square stood for 5 tally marks because that is how we group our tally marks. We even got to watch the old tootsie roll commercial with the owl (they had no idea what I was talking about when I first mentioned it)!
Dillan even informed us that if your wrapper had a guy shooting a bow & arrow on it then that meant you were going to receive good luck. I had no idea! So... that lead us into another lesson where we figured out how many kids had wrappers with the arrow & how many had them without the arrow. We used tally marks to figure out our answer. I love teachable moments like those!