Silly string is another fun invention that happened by mistake. The inventors had been trying to make a material that could squirt onto someone’s broken arm or leg and harden into a cast. But the soft string that you shoot out of a can works much better as a fun toy. The can squirts 20 to 30 feet of string at once, with 400 total feet of string per can – enough to make a very silly mess.
Wee ones: Which is shorter, a 6-foot squirt of silly string or an 8-foot squirt?
Little kids: If you order 12 cans of silly string and it comes with 1 free extra can, how many cans do you get? Bonus: If the can squirts 20 feet at once, how much longer is that string than you are? (You can round your height to the closest number of feet.)
Big kids: If the can holds 400 feet of string and you’ve squirted half of it, how many feet of string are left? Bonus: A baseball diamond is a square 90 feet on each edge. Can a 400-foot squirt of silly string wrap all the way around the bases once?
Answers:
Wee ones: The 6-foot squirt.
Little kids: 13 cans. Bonus: Different for everyone…subtract your height in feet from 20.
Big kids: 200 feet. Bonus: Yes, since the diamond is just 360 feet around!
