Have you ever seen one thing suddenly look like something else, like an electrical outlet that looks like a smiley face? Our brains like to see patterns, and seeing a second pattern on an object is called pareidolia. If you’ve ever spotted an animal shape in a cloud or “the Man in the Moon,” those are also examples of pareidolia. It’s a nice surprise when a trash can smiles back at you!
Wee ones: Smiley faces have 2 dots for eyes and 1 line for a mouth. Does it have more dots or lines?
Little kids: If you see a cloud that looks like a dog, then a whale, then a cat, and the pattern starts over to look like a dog again…what animal comes next? Bonus: If an orange has 10 dots that look like a smiley face, how many dots do 5 oranges have? Count up by 10s!
Big kids: If a house has 2 square windows for eyes and 4 rectangular windows for its mouth, how many sides do all those windows have? (Assume they don’t touch or share any sides.) Bonus: If all those windows were triangles instead, how many fewer sides would all those windows have?
Answers:
Wee ones: There are more dots, because 2 is more than 1.
Little kids: A whale. Bonus: 50 dots: 10, 20, 30, 40, 50.
Big kids: 24 sides, because there are 6 windows with 4 sides each. Bonus: 6 fewer sides. You can multiply it out to get 24 – 18 = 6, or you can just drop 1 side from each of 6 windows!
