M&Ms Maths

It's clear from the photos how much fun the girls had with this activity. They were each given their own small box of lollies (big M&Ms, mini ones and smarties to make it interesting for comparison) and they didn’t even eat one lolly for at least an hour. The little ones sorted them by colour, tried to make their own patterns, and then we placed them on graph paper for counting. I then suggested they draw a bar graph with my help. This gave them a good idea of how visual images are used to represent various objects and concepts. A would not let me help. I had envisaged I would rule the lines for the bar graph and she would colour it in the correct colours. Instead she did it herself and drew lines in different colours to represent that each colour and a different amount. Although it wasn’t an accurate representation she demonstrated that she understood the concepts involved – far more important than having an accurate graph with beautiful colours (which was my original objective). E was able to do the graph properly and loved it so much she was asking what other graphs she could do. This is such a great activity as it involves many different skills and processes - even the ruling accurately was a challenge and it inspired them of course because it involved bright coloured little objects and candy coated chocolate! I suggested a birthday graph so she did a bar graph with all our friend’s and families birthdays and both big girls were able to “read” the graph and ascertain which month/colour had the most, the least, less than or greater than. When I finally told the girls they could finally eat they didn’t want too and asked to do more activities with them! They didn't take much convincing though. We had started this activity with our kitchen scales and began to look at measurement - we compared the weights and number of m&m’s and estimated how much each one might weigh. It was a good introduction to measurement but I think we will follow this up soon with some heavier and more contrasting items which will be easier for comparison.