As trick-or-treaters of various ages have been coming to our door this evening, I have been entertaining myself by trying to guess what type of candy each child will choose.  In our bowl, we have the following:

marshmallow "eyeballs" filled with jelly of different colors

strawberry Twizzlers

Reeses peanut butter cups

Snickers bars

Kit-kat bars

plain chocolate M & Ms

peanut M & Ms

almond M & Ms

peanut butter M & Ms

An added dimension to this experiment is that we are allowing the children to choose three pieces of candy rather than just one.  Will they choose variety, or will they focus on a favorite type of candy?  Will younger children choose different candies than older ones?  Will girls choose different candies than boys?  So far I haven't noticed any patterns, but the marshmallow eyeballs, plain M & Ms and Reeses peanut butter cups seem to be the most popular items in general.