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Health & Fitness

Today from Bedtime Math: Turkey Talk

Try this fun math challenge with your kids!

As the U.S. prepares for the big Thanksgiving holiday, there's a lot of turkey talk, since turkey is the traditional main dish served at Thanksgiving gatherings. This isn't a great outcome for the poor turkey, so what better time to stop and admire these strange birds. Turkeys are pretty hefty, weighing as much as 20 pounds even in the wild. Despite this, young turkeys can fly short distances and climb up bales of hay, though as they get older they slow down and aren't as nimble (kind of like us humans). Turkeys are also known for their gobble-gobble sounds and the crazy shape of their heads. That alone gives us lots of fun new words: as you see in the diagram here, the flap of flesh hanging from a turkey's forehead is called the "snood," and the bumps down the back of the neck are "caruncles." Then there's that big throaty flap of flesh, called a "wattle." With all that stuff wrapped around their heads, no wonder they make weird sounds!

Now here's today's math~

Wee ones: If a turkey has a snood, a waddle, a beak and a beard, how many body parts is that?

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Little kids: If you have 8 birds running around your yard and all but 3 of them have snoods, how many snood-sporting turkeys do you have?  Bonus: If you add up all their snoods and wattles, with 1 of each on each turkey, how many funky turkey body parts is that?

Big kids: If you have 2 25-pound turkeys and a 20-pound turkey, how many pounds of turkey do you have?  Bonus: If half of that weight can be served for Thanksgiving and each pound can serve 4 people, how many people can those turkeys feed?

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Answers:

Wee ones: 4 body parts.

Little kids: 5 turkeys.  Bonus: 10 body parts.

Big kids: 70 pounds.  Bonus: 140 people!

 

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