Here's what we did:
We used them to make patterns: A B A B, AA B AA B, AA B C AA B C and so on
We used them to make shapes...triangles, circles, rectangles, ovals, rhombuses, and hexagons.
We sorted them by color.
My plan was to use them for adding and subtracting, but the girls had other plans. A few other things we did were to use them to practice skip counting by 2's and
5's. We used them to make fractions (1/2 of these M & M's are blue and 1/2 are red OR are 1/2 of them green if there are 5 green and 3 red?)
Ella practiced counting with them.
You can also use M&M's (or skittles or cereal or blocks) to practice multiplication and division. Have the child make 3 groups of 6 to figure out 3 x6. Michelle practiced division without even knowing it. She would count out 10 M&M's. Then I would have her pretend she was sharing them evenly with 2 friends or five friends. Then she counted out 12 M &M's and shared them evenly with 3 friends. After that, the kids were ready to be done with the M & M's, so then the best part of the activity? They got to eat them!
What would you do with M &M's? Could they also be used to teach a science or reading principle? Any creative ideas out there?
Kodi does math with them. She loves doing subtraction with them (She eats them).
ReplyDeletegreat, hands on activity to teach math concepts! I love to see teachers doing this kind of thing in pre-school AND beyond! :) o.. and mommies too! :)
ReplyDeleteToo fun! We will have to attempt that and hope that they are not all gone before they actually learn something!!
ReplyDeleteOne of my favorite things to teach is patterns. The kids absolutely love it when they finally figure it out! and playing with m&m's is sort of a stand-by if I need a filler (especially for class parties)
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