Have you ever played with dominoes? One way to play is to stand up the little rectangles in a long line, then knock over the first domino to set off a chain reaction. Well, it turns out you can play dominoes with cereal boxes. This elementary school just set a world record for the “most cereal boxes knocked down in a domino run.” The teachers and students set up more than 6,000 boxes, and 3,730 of those fell! It took 4 tries to get that many boxes to fall. After that last attempt, all the cereal was given to a food bank. Domi-no way to beat that!
Wee ones: A rectangle has 4 sides. Can you name a shape that has 3 sides?
Little kids: If the domino pattern has a box of Cheerios, then a box of Fruit Loops, then a box of Rice Krispies, and then repeats, what type of cereal is the 8th box? Bonus: What about the 14th box?
Big kids: If the school set up exactly 6,000 cereal boxes and knocked over 3,730, did more than half the boxes get knocked over? Bonus: If every one of those 6,000 boxes held 10 bowls of cereal, how many bowls of cereal were in the domino chain?
Answers:
Wee ones: A triangle has 3 sides.
Little kids: Fruit Loops. Bonus: Also Fruit Loops. It is 6 boxes later (14 – 8 = 6), so the 14th box is 2 full rounds of the pattern from the 8th box.
Big kids: Yes, because half of 6,000 is 3,000, and 3,730 > 3,000. Bonus: 60,000 bowls of cereal!
