November 2025
Welcome to EFM's November Newsletter!
Read, Count, Play – Every Child, Every Day!
It is essential that every caregiver in the world reads books and does math with their young children!
EFM believes in every child’s mathematical right to equity, opportunity, and personal fulfillment.
This month, Erin Wahler-Cleveland returns as our newsletter author. You'll be hearing from Chris and Erin on alternating months from here on out.
The Math in Halloween Candy
If you’ve had the chance to read anything of mine before, you know I’m all about looking for the natural opportunities to develop early math concepts as we move through everyday life. A big one from this season: the inundation of candy that made it into our household.
What To Do With All This Candy?
Is there still a bag of Halloween candy languishing somewhere in your house?
Guess what? There’s some major math in there!
In our house, the tradition is to begin sorting immediately.
Sorting and counting Halloween candy is actually a great example of something called a counting collection — an early math routine used in many classrooms that supports the development of key counting strategies and number sense.
As they explore, notice:
Do they count one-by-one?
Do they sort by type or color before counting?
Do they make groups of the same size? Is there any attempt to count by larger groups rather than by ones?
Each of these choices gives you insight into where your child is on their counting journey — and opens the door for joyful, low-pressure math learning.
Here are a few snapshots of our candy sorting in progress this year!
And here’s Janelle counting her sorted candy, all the way up to 84! After that, each time she was allowed to eat a piece she mentally tracked the new total, subtracting by 1 each time.
After we recorded this, I asked if she thought she could organize her candy so it would be easier to count. She thought she could count by twos. This is a great starting point and easier than going by ones…but she is already able to count by 10s so I’m looking for ways to nudge her to think about this.
I see potential for other math conversations here too, what about you? I’d love to hear from you at erin@rootsandwingsmath.com. If you enjoy this newsletter and want a weekly dose, I invite you to subscribe to the Roots and Wings Math Parent Newsletter.
Warmly,
Erin Wahler-Cleveland
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