No, this isn’t a picture from a Dr. Seuss book. The trees in this photo are real, and they really are blue! Artist Konstantin Dimopoulous started painting trees blue to remind people that trees are disappearing from Earth — and that life would then look very different. The paint is safe for the trees and eventually washed off. It was kind of pretty, but also kind of weird. The real question is, how long did it take to paint them?
Wee ones: If you’ve painted 5 blue trees and your friend has painted 7 blue trees, which of you has painted more?
Little kids: If you’re 4 feet tall and your ladder lets you reach 5 feet higher than that, how high on these trees could you paint? Bonus: If a bigger ladder lets you paint up to 13 feet high on the tree, how much taller is the new ladder?
Big kids: If Konstantin painted 500 trees and used 2 one-gallon buckets of paint on each, how many buckets of blue paint did he use? Bonus: If he painted 100 trees each day starting on a Tuesday, on what day did he finish painting half of the 500 trees?
Answers:
Wee ones: Your friend has painted more trees.
Little kids: 9 feet high. Bonus: 4 feet higher, since 13 is 4 more than 9.
Big kids: 1,000 buckets of paint. Bonus: He finished the 250th tree on Thursday.
