Our fan Arun W. just asked us a question we’d never thought about: how many Cheerios are in a box of Cheerios? Luckily we have some handy here at Bedtime Math (well, they’re Multi-Grain Cheerios, but same idea). Here’s exactly 1 cup of them…can you guess how many are in there?…There are 252! So a 12-ounce box holds 11 cups, giving us 2,772 Cheerios in the box — and lots of crunchy puffiness.
Wee ones: What shape is a Cheerio?
Little kids: If your spoon holds 2 oat Cheerios, 2 wheat and 2 rice, how many multigrain Cheerios do you have? Bonus: If you’re counting up 60 Cheerios by 10s, what numbers do you say?
Big kids: If we say there are about 250 Cheerios per cup, how many cups do you need to get to 1,000 Cheerios? Bonus: If you love, love, love Cheerios and eat 20 cups of them, how many little Os is that? Use your answer from the last question to help!
Answers:
Wee ones: A circle…from above it looks like an “annulus” (a ring), and in 3D it’s a “torus” (donut shape).
Little kids: 6 Cheerios. Bonus: 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60.
Big kids: 4 cups. Bonus: 5,000 Os, since you have 5 sets of 4 cups, and a set of 4 cups has 1,000.
