Sure, you’ve probably eaten apples, bananas, and grapes. But have you ever tasted any of the fruit you see in the picture? That grape-like jabuticaba grows right on the trunk and branches of the tree. The rambutan looks like a furry strawberry, and the horned melon really has horns. And when you eat the berry-like miracle fruit, everything you eat after it tastes sweet, even broccoli. If you don’t love your veggies, that might be a great weird fruit for you.
Wee ones: If you eat 3 apples and a jabuticaba, how many pieces of fruits do you eat?
Little kids: If you pick 6 jabuticabas from the tree trunk, then climb up and pull 2 more off the branches, how many have you picked? Bonus: If you try all 20 of these fruits except the snake fruit because that just doesn’t sound good, how many types have you tried?
Big kids: If you try 1/2 of the fruits on this list of 20, then try that snake fruit, how many do you try? Bonus: If you bite into a miracle fruit at 6:25 pm, and it makes broccoli taste sweet for the next 17 minutes, what’s the latest you get to taste sweet broccoli?
Answers:
Wee ones: 4 pieces of fruit.
Little kids: 8 jabuticabas. Bonus: 19 types of fruit.
Big kids: 11 fruits. Bonus: Until 6:42 pm.
Laura Bilodeau Overdeck is founder and president of Bedtime Math Foundation. Her goal is to make math as playful for kids as it was for her when she was a child. Her mom had Laura baking before she could walk, and her dad had her using power tools at a very unsafe age, measuring lengths, widths and angles in the process. Armed with this early love of numbers, Laura went on to get a BA in astrophysics from Princeton University, and an MBA from the Wharton School of Business; she continues to star-gaze today. Laura’s other interests include her three lively children, chocolate, extreme vehicles, and Lego Mindstorms.