Have you ever thought about using the most sugar filled holiday of the year as an educational aid? If you are anything like me - a parent who dreads having that much sugar in the house at one time, you've probably never thought about this.
I was recently reading an article that encouraged parents and teachers to use the candies collected from Halloween to aid children in understanding addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and even fractions! It's a great way to engage the children with the shorter attention spans. It is also an excellent visual way to help students who are struggling with the concepts. The article also suggested using the candy as positive reinforcement when playing learning games. You can almost guarantee that the children will be more likely to work harder at getting the answers right. So Halloween really doesn't have to be so bad (for parents that is).