Human: 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? Assistant:
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.