Math Is Real Life: Shopping for Chocolate

It’s the first Wednesday of March which means it’s time for our monthly linky – Math IS Real Life!! If you want to see how the linky works, or just want other real world math ideas, check out our Pinterest Board of all the posts so that you can look back and find some great ideas and REAL pictures to use in your classroom!
If you are linking up, please include the below picture AND a link back to all four of our blogs – feel free to use the 2nd image and the links listed below!
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#MiRL

A monthly REAL WORLD math blog link-up hosted by
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This month’s “Math is Real Life” post was inspired by a recent trip to the San Francisco areas.  We were off visiting Stanford with my son (now THERE is a MiRL post…tuition and room and board!) and we stopped to check out Ghirardelli!  Now…if you are like me…chocolate is a very important part of your life, so this is kind of a “Mecca” of sorts…but within a few minutes of walking in, I saw the HUGE amount of math on display!
I seriously could have just rolled around in this. This bin was huge.  Anyone want to estimate how many chocolates?  The answer?  Not. Enough.
How much could you save?  And the bigger question…do you need 3 pounds of chocolate malt balls?

Think of the great questions you could ask…what is the MOST 5 bars could cost?  What is the LEAST 5 bars could cost?  What are all the possible totals for buying 5 bars?
How much are they per POUND?  (Pretty unusual to offer a “per half pound” price!  How many pieces do you suppose are in a half pound?  A pound?
I just wanted this.  No math here.

So…how much is one bag?  Two bags?  Three bags?  How much would it cost to buy FOUR bags then?  

So…how many chocolates fit in a small take out box? How do these prices compare to the prices in the displays above?  
The very BEST math of the day?  This.  The one piece of FREE chocolate they handed out at the door!
What am I doing with this in my classroom?  I made a photo collage that I printed of some of these pictures and am asking students to generate questions from it that could turn into word problems.  This is SUCH an easy way to incorporate “Real Life” math in your classroom with very little effort!
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Don’t forget to check out the other MIRL posts below! Check back over the next few days – more will be added!!  Thanks for stopping by!  I recommend the caramel, by the way!

Meg