Coleen loved sprinkles. At the beginning of the day, she had twelve cans of sprinkles. After applying sprinkles to her hair, her clothing and her pets, she had 3 less than half as many cans of sprinkles as she started out with. How many cans of sprinkles remained? Let's answer step by step:
Half of twelve cans of sprinkles is 12 / 2 = 6 cans. Three less than half as many cans of sprinkles is 6 - 3 = 3 cans of sprinkles. The answer: 3.