Lower Elementary:
Question: Harry, Sue, and Felix enter an Easter egg hunt. Sue found 24 eggs. Felix found half as much as Sue. Harry found half as much as Felix. How many eggs did Harry find?
Answer: 6 eggs
Solution: To find how many eggs Felix found, take half of 24 (the number of eggs Sue found). Half of 24 is 12. Now, take half of 12 to get the number of eggs Harry found. Half of 12 is 6.
Upper Elementary:
Question: The grand prize of an Easter party is given to the one that can give the mystery number first. To figure out the mystery number, you are given a box that has 14 eggs. Half are blue, 4 are red, and the rest are yellow. The digits that make up the number come from the number of eggs of each color in the box. You are given 2 hints to help find the mystery number. The number is even and the hundreds digit is larger than the ones digit. What is the mystery number?
Answer: 734
Solution: Since there are three colors in the box, it is a 3 digit number. Now, let’s figure out each of the digits.
Blue: half of the total number of eggs. Half of 14 is 7 blue eggs.
Red: 4 red eggs.
Yellow: however many are left. 7 + 4 = 11. 14 – 11 = 3 yellow eggs.
The digits we have to choose from is 7, 4, and 3. The number is even, and since 4 is the only even number, 4 must go in the ones place. The hundreds digit is larger than the ones digit, which means that 7 must go in the hundreds place, since 3 is less than 4. That leaves 3 to go in the tens place. So, the mystery number is 734.
Middle School:
Question: Valerie is decorating lots of eggs. Half of the eggs she decorated are blue, a fourth are red, a fifth are green, and the remaining 2 are yellow. How many eggs did Valerie decorate?
Answer: 40 eggs
Solution: First find the fractional part that the yellow eggs represent. To do this, add the fractions from the other parts and subtract that from 1. To add 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/5, they need to have the same denominator, or the same name (Law of Sameness).
1/2 = 10/20
1/4 = 5/20
1/5 = 4/20
Add these together, you get 19/20. 1 – 19/20 = 20/20 – 19/20 = 1/20. The 2 yellow eggs represent 1/20 of the total eggs. To find the total number of eggs, we ask 1/20 of what number is 2? Since 20 groups of 2 is 40, there are 40 eggs.
Algebra and Up:
Question: Jessica is making a necklace to give to her mother during Passover. Starting at the clasp of the necklace, each charm on the necklace goes in the pattern red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple. What color will the 94th charm on the necklace be?
Answer: Green
Solution: The pattern repeats every 6 colors. Since the charm we want to know the color of is in the 94th position, we divide 94 by 6. 94 ÷ 6 = 15 R 4. Since 6 does not go into 94 evenly the remainder will tell us the color of the charm. A remainder of 1 means red, a remainder of 2 is orange, a remainder of 3 is yellow, a remainder of 4 is green, a remainder of 5 is blue, and if it is divisible by 6, then the remainder is 0 and the color is purple. Since the remainder is 4, the color of the 94th charm is green.
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