M&M Math

So what makes Math more fun for 3 year olds??? CHOCOLATE! We decided to try our hand in a little "M&M" Math. The kids were so excited to see that I was going to give them their own (little) bag of M&M's. Before handing it out I told them that they absolutely could not eat the M&M's until we were all finished with them. The kids were amazing and didn't even ask once when they could gulp them down.

Each of the children had 6 colored cards that matched the 6 colors of M&M's. Then after they opened their bags they divided the M&M's into colors. Once they were all divided we counted 1 color at a time writing each child's amount of that color on their matching color card. We would then talk about who had the most of a particular color and who had the least, or who might have had the same amount.

A few of the kids were missing M&M's of one color. It was a great learning tool for the number ZERO.

By now the kids were still doing awesome with their counting but we were down to 1 more color to count and there were so eager to eat up those delicious chocolaty morsels. So I said, "Okay. You did great, who wants to eat their M&M's." Of course they all wanted to devour the candy. And so they did.

As the teacher I got a big "THUMBS UP" for a fun way to learn counting and other math components.