Activity

Candy Jar Quiz (how many)

(social-distancing-friendly) Students compete to correctly guess how many pieces of candy are in a jar using a PowerPoint.

I wanted to make a social distancing version of my Guess How Many activity.

Materials: a computer, projector/screen, handouts, a timer

How to play:
- Hand each student the sheet below with the letters A, B, C, and D on it. They'll use this for showing their answer.
- Divide the class into teams by rows. I recommend doing 2 or 3 teams, depending on how many students are in the class (34 students - 2 teams of 17, 33 students - 3 teams of 11, etc.) You'll need to have the same number of students on each team. Include the JTE if need be.
- Show each jar for about 5 seconds before hitting the enter button to cover it up. Hit enter again to reveal their ABCD options to choose from.
- The students hold up their cards, and you secretly record how many students on each team correctly answered.
- Hit enter again. "How many pieces of candy do you have?" appears. Have them repeat this after you, and then reveal the answer.
- Every student who held up the right card earns a point for their team. (so one question can potentially award 15+ points to a team)
- The questions get progressively harder, so I allotted more time as the game went on.

Notes on the PowerPoint
- The first part of the PowerPoint is for explaining what "pieces of" means
- The practice portion of the game starts on slide 12
- The actual game starts on slide 15

Source: I took the pictures of the candy jars and the answers from a BuzzFeed quiz called "I Bet You Can't Get Higher Than A 50% On This Guessing Quiz"

Files:
Small files
  • 2020 s 1 p42 how many ABCD.pdf (9.03 KB)
  • 2020 s 1 p42 how many ABCD.pptx (37.1 KB)
  • Medium files (requires an account to download) -
  • 2020 s 1 p 42 how many pieces of candy quiz.pptx (4.89 MB)
  • 21
    Submitted by rebvandev July 29, 2020 Estimated time: 25 minutes
    Inspired by Guess How Many
    Inspired How Many Candies
    1. UonumaRobert July 30, 2020

      This is great. It could be followed up with a reading activity where they read passages and fill in pictures on a worksheet with the correct number and types of pieces. Writing as well.

    2. rebvandev July 30, 2020

      Thanks so much!

    3. KobeALT May 17, 2022

      Thank you for this! This unit is really boring and I didn't know how to spice it up

    4. lilcezzz October 19, 2022

      Nice idea.

    5. GaeilgeAmee June 17, 2024

      I had to comment because I found this activity when I first started teaching in Japan 3 years ago and I still use it without fail every year and am shamed I never came up with something like it in my whole teaching career! My classes go absolutely wild for this every year and it`s become such a staple in my activity rotation! Such an awesome job!

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