This mama duck and her ducklings look like they should be swimming on a lake. But they’re happy: They’re walking to the pizzeria. Ducks normally lay between 7 to 12 eggs at once, so this is a big family. Ducks normally have to catch their food, eating fish, plants, worms, and bugs. But eating a slice of pizza sounds a lot easier — and yummier.
Wee ones: If the mama duck takes 6 ducklings to pizza and the daddy duck takes 5 ducklings out for ice cream, which duck took more ducklings?
Little kids: How many ducklings can you count in the picture? How did you go about counting them? Bonus: If there are 15 ducks and 2 of those are mom and dad ducks, and all the rest are ducklings, how many ducklings is that?
Big kids: If 100 ducklings walk down the street, and 1 duck goes into the pizzeria, then 4 more, then 9 more…what number comes in next to keep the pattern? Bonus: If there are 3 pizzas with 8 slices each, can 10 ducks share those slices equally with no slices left over? If not, how many slices are left over?
The sky’s the limit: If some number of ducks goes in for pizza, then double that number walks in the 2nd set, then double that number for the 3rd round, and there are now 56 ducks in there, how many ducks walked in in the 1st round?
Answers:
Wee ones: The mama duck, with 6.
Little kids: We count 13 ducklings…see if you can find them all! Bonus: 13 ducklings.
Big kids: 16 ducks, since you started with 1, then added 3, then added 5…now you add 7. (Cool fact: these are perfect squares: 1 x 1, 2 x 2, 3 x 3, 4 x 4… the pattern works forever!) Bonus: There are 4 slices left over after each of the 10 ducks gets 2 slices.
The sky’s the limit: 8 ducks. Each duck that walks in is followed by 2 more ducks, then 4 more ducks. So they enter in sets of 7. 7 goes into 56 8 times, so there are 8 sets. We have 8 ducks, then 16, then 32, which all adds up to 56.
