Midnight MathematicsMidnight MathematicsThird Grade

By Ana Wheelock

Fireflies in the Night

As the children played outside, the night began to settle in. All of a sudden small lights began to fly around them. Fireflies!! They ran inside to find some jars to catch them in. The children found 4 small jars which they were able to catch 8 fireflies in each. How many Fireflies did the children catch all together?

Hint! Hint!Hint! Hint!•The jars are the number of groups the children were able to make.

Starry NightStarry Night

One bright starry night Lori and Alice lay in the grass looking up at the stars. As they lay there, they wondered how many stars could there be in the sky. So they both began to count. Before long they realized they wouldn’t be able to count all the stars. Lori made it to 132 stars and Alice counted 256. How many stars did they count in all?

Hint!!Hint!!•You need to put what the two girls counted together to find the answer.

The Hungry Bats

Alex and James discovered bats flying around in the woods behind their house. “What are they doing?” They realized they were catching bugs. As they watched, they counted, 1,2,3…until they reached 24 bugs caught and eaten by the bats. If the boys only saw two bats eating that night and they shared their food evenly, how many bugs did each bat eat?

Hint!!Hint!!•Evenly means that each bat had the exact same amount

of food as the other.

Animals in the Animals in the NightNight

After a night of adventure the children returned home to talk about all the animals had seen. They had counted 236 different animals. Forty eight of those animals were bats. How many animals did they see that were not bats?

Hint!Hint!•If you add the number of bats with the number of other animals you

will get the total amount.•The total number of other animals will be less than the total

number of all animals.