On the first day of April, April Fools’ Day, everyone’s out to play jokes on each other, like covering a donut in baby powder to look like sugar. Turns out people in different countries play different tricks. In France, Italy and Belgium, people try to tape paper fish on other people’s backs without being caught. Belgian kids also try to lock their parents out of the house. In the US, people glue doors shut, dyeing the milk pink, or just make up stories to see who will believe them. That sounds better than eating that donut.
Wee ones: If you hide a plastic frog, lizard, spider, and snake in your friend’s backpack, how many yucky fake animals do you hide?
Little kids: If you tape 5 fish to your friend’s back, then 2 fall off, then you tape 4 more, then 1 more falls off, how many fish are still taped up? Bonus: If you stuck 200 blue sticky notes, 200 green, 200 pink and 200 yellow to that car, how many sticky notes did you use?
Big kids: If you set your sister’s clock 20 minutes ahead so she thinks she’s really late, and it should say 7:15 am, what time does it say now? Bonus: If you have 3 cereals and want all 3 of them in the wrong box, how many possible ways can you re-box them?
Answers:
Wee ones: 4 animals.
Little kids: 6 fish. Bonus: 800 sticky notes.
Big kids: 7:35 am. Bonus: Only 2 possible ways: in boxes 1, 2, and 3 you can have cereals 231 or 312.
