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Happy Meal

How much does it cost to collect all the Happy Meal toys?

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Happy Meal

How much does it cost to collect all the Happy Meal toys?

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Check it out! This lesson was just updated in September 2024, and we hope you love the new and improved version. If you've already prepped an earlier version, fear not, you can still find those here through Thursday December 5, 2024.

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Happy Meal - Student Handout.pdf
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Happy Meal - Teacher Guide.pdf
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2023-2024 Versions

In the fall of 2024, Citizen Math released updated versions of every lesson in our library, plus a few new ones! We know you may have already prepped an earlier version or planned a repeat of last year, so we're continuing to make these earlier versions available through Thursday December 5, 2024.

You can find the new lessons through the regular search, and we hope you love them as much as we do. You can read more about these updates in Our Community.

How much would it cost to get all the toys in a Happy Meal? The McDonald’s Happy Meal is a cultural phenomenon. Parents like it because it’s a quick and easy meal, and kids like it because it comes with a toy (typically part of a larger set).

Students use trials, probabilities, and expected value to determine how many meals it takes to get a complete set of Happy Meal toys and debate whether McDonald’s should allow customers to pay a fee to choose their own figurine.

REAL WORLD TAKEAWAYS

  • When trying to collect a full set of Happy Meal toys, the chance of getting a new toy decreases as you collect more toys.
  • The expected cost of acquiring a new toy, then, also increases.

MATH OBJECTIVES

  • Create frequency distribution from experimental data and interpret the results
  • Use theoretical and experimental probability to reason about real-world decisions
  • Calculate expected value and use it to evaluate decisions in a real-world context
This complex task is best as a culminating unit activity after students have developed formal knowledge and conceptual understanding.
Algebra 1
Probability (Beg.)
Algebra 1
Probability (Beg.)
Content Standards S.ID.1 Represent data with plots on the real number line (dot plots, histograms, and box plots). S.ID.2 Use statistics appropriate to the shape of the data distribution to compare center (median, mean) and spread (interquartile range, standard deviation) of two or more different data sets. S.CP.2 Understand that two events A and B are independent if the probability of A and B occurring together is the product of their probabilities, and use this characterization to determine if they are independent. S.CP.5 Recognize and explain the concepts of conditional probability and independence in everyday language and everyday situations. For example, compare the chance of having lung cancer if you are a smoker with the chance of being a smoker if you have lung cancer. S.CP.7 Apply the Addition Rule, P(A or B) = P(A) + P(B) - P(A and B), and interpret the answer in terms of the model. S.MD.4 (+) Develop a probability distribution for a random variable defined for a sample space in which probabilities are assigned empirically; find the expected value. For example, find a current data distribution on the number of TV sets per household in the United States, and calculate the expected number of sets per household. How many TV sets would you expect to find in 100 randomly selected households? S.MD.7 (+) Analyze decisions and strategies using probability concepts (e.g., product testing, medical testing, pulling a hockey goalie at the end of a game).
Mathematical Practices MP.1 Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them. MP.2 Reason abstractly and quantitatively. MP.3 Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others. MP.4 Model with mathematics. MP.5 Use appropriate tools strategically. MP.7 Look for and make use of structure. MP.8 Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning.

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