Fun with Food Freebies!

Good afternoon! I must admit that blogging is a nice release for me. *Insert my frustration with potty training.* So...it's nap time (for both kiddos) and I'm de-stressing! Okay so this post is all about math. I LOVE math! Perhaps it's because my dad and my older sister are math teachers...but nevertheless, I have always enjoyed finding unique ways to teach math to my students. As we all know, food is so easy to engage students and teach them important math concepts. One of my favorite food items to use is marshmallows! Have you all seen the seasonal marshmallows that come out in stores around Halloween, Christmas, and Valentine's Day? Last spring, they even made marshmallows based on the Pixar movie Cars! I know graphing is one of the easiest things to do with marshmallows, but my class also does a lot of nonstandard measurement with marshmallows too. I've created several graphs to go along with these seasonal marshmallows, but the only one I have on my home computer is for the Gingerbread Marshmallows that came out around Christmas time last year. Using these yummy gingerbread men, I have students measure different objects around the room. For later in the year, I add 3 questions where students can measure an object of their choice. I provide boxes for students to write the word or draw the picture (whichever they are capable of doing) of the object they are measuring. Then, they measure the object, count the number of marshmallows they used and write the number in the blank. Voila! Fish and chips! Click here for the gingerbread measurement sheet.

The second math activity I'm going to share today has to do with the concept of chance. In Kindergarten, we only touch the surface of this concept by discussing the terms "more likely" and "less likely." Skittles are a super fun (and yummy) way to talk about these ideas. This activity was done at the very end of the year and would also be more than suitable for a 1st grade classroom. Click here for a chance activity using Skittles!

I've got some other math and food activities that I'll share once I'm back at school and in front of my computer. In the meantime, check out Mrs. Gagne's Kindergarten website for some great teacher resources (FREE!). Click on Printables for some great ideas! I've used several of her activities in my classroom...like the funny bones graph. FUN! You can order the candy pieces at Oriental Trading...fyi. :) Enjoy the day off tomorrow!