When I was taking a psychology class and my boys were little, I tried one of the psychology experiments on them. I had three of my boys and one of their friends, ages just turned 7, just turned 5, the friend was almost 5 and my little one was 2 1/2. The experiment was to take each child separately and give them a cookie and myself two cookies. Then I asked, "Is that fair?" with no inflection. The baby happily started munching his cookie and didn't care.
The friend's turn: - No, it's not fair. You have more than me.
I reached over, right in front of him and broke his in half, then asked again, "Is that fair?"
He happily replied, "Yes, now we both have two!"
My five year old's turn started the same way, he agreed it was now fair once I broke the cookie right in front of him. But he hesitated for a moment, reached out a finger and pushed one of his cookie halves toward the other. He stopped, looked at my plate, looked at his again and pushed the halves together. Then he said, "Hey! That's not fair! I have two cookies but I really don't. It's really just ONE." I gave him a second cookie.
My seven year old just looked at me when I tried him, raised his eyebrow and said, "Oh, please." LOL!
It was great, we did four experiments and I got to watch my five year old as he teetered on the cusp of this new understanding of conservation of matter.
Just a few days ago, my son (the 7 year old who is now 27) impulsively tried this with my five year old granddaughter and three year old grandson. He broke the three year old's cookie in half and asked if it was fair. My granddaughter told her brother, "It IS fair. You really only have one cookie but he made it two." She's almost six so it was easier for her to get it but she still thought it was kind of fair even though she had a very doubtful look on her face. I can't help but think she might have had a different opinion if it had been her that got only one cookie!
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