While recycling crayons for Christmas presents for our first graders, it occurred to me that this would be an excellent 3 Act Math task.  I decided to go about this one a little differently and used the video as the Act 2 and a picture for Act 3.  This activity provides an opportunity for many extensions!  Feel free to comment (as always) and let me know how it can be improved!

Although there are many standards that this task addresses, I feel it is a great extension to 3.OA.A.1.

Act 1:

What do you notice? What do you wonder?

How many crayons will it take to make 6 melted hearts?

Act 2: 

What do you know?  What do you need to know to solve your question?

11 crayons per heart, 6 hearts altogether.

Act 3: 

Extension:

What if I had 28 students in my class?  How many crayons would I need to make one heart per person?

What if the crayons were worn down to half of their full size?