M&M Activity

       In math class we did a fun activity exploring how to construct a bar graph, a pictograph, and how to make a dot plot. These are all categorical graphs, where we get one specific topic and the data is counted. The materials that were needed for this activity were: 1 small bag of plain m&m's, the worksheet that goes along with it, and dot plot's. The objective of this activity was to identify which m&m color appeared the most in the bag. Before studying the data, we had to guess which colors would appear the most and which would appear the least. After we got our individual data, we collected the data of the class together, represented the frequencies with a pictograph (picture below), and organized the class data with dot plots! If I wanted for my students to explore more with these categorical data, I would recommend this fun online game that I found. You can even choose the grade and there are so many math game options but for this lesson, it would be "Math Data Game for Kids".

I enjoyed this activity because it was hands on and we could physically see and count the different colored m&m's! I think students would also enjoy this activity because sometimes teachers just provide lessons on worksheets and PowerPoint, and zone out and not capture what they just learned. Trying different methods on how to teach a lesson an be really helpful and provides different viewpoints on what we learn. Afterwards, we got to eat the m&m's, which was a big plus! 😄However, when doing this activity with elementary kids it is super important to specify for them to eat the m&m's AFTER they are done recording their data! Always remember Math is awesome!