This week we did a very simple math activity as part of our special Gumdrop STEM blog hop. My kids are currently five and two years old, respectively, so I wanted to do a simple home learning activity without too many tricky parts. Luckily for me, the kids love counting and coloring, so a little sorting and graphing activity seemed right up their alley. It was super simple. I mean, really really simple. But they loved it. Because CANDY.
First, we took the gumdrops and put them in a bowl. Then we sorted them and counted how many of each color we had. This was the part that the two-year-old enjoyed most. (She's not always sure what comes after ten, but she sure loves to count.)
On paper, we made a table of all our delicious data:
Second, we made bar graphs of all of the data points, using free printable graph paper from
this site. We filled in one square for each gumdrop. (Note: It's a good plan to wait until after counting to label your graph axes--you never know how lopsided your candy bag will be!) We didn't do a lot of decoration on ours, but if you or your kid has a particularly artistic mind, you can do all kinds of interesting things with these graphs.
After our graphs were completed we talked about the results. Which color did we have the most of? The least? I pointed out how a bar graph makes it easy to know this data at a quick glance. If your kids are older you could also do some beginning statistics with them to figure out the mean, median, mode, and range.
Last, we ate the candy. This was the five-year-old's favorite part. (Naturally.)
Saturday Science
And now on to our special edition of Saturday Science, "STEM with Candy Gumdrops"! Check out what our wonderful co-hosts have been up to with their candy and link up your own math and science activities:
Yes, candy would have swung it for me too! We're definitely going to have to try something like this!
ReplyDeleteJust make sure you eat beforehand so you aren't starving while handling candy. It was hard for me to wait until we were done to dive in and chow down!
DeleteVery fun! We'll need to try this. Did the numbers keep changing with sneaky hands grabbing gum drops? :) I love too how it's something that multiple aged kids can work on together.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Anne, I always love to do activities that both my kids can do together. It helps all of us focus and learn more :) And I think you may be right about the numbers changing...
DeleteGraphing is always so much fun and when you can *eat* your sample at the end it makes it even better!
ReplyDeleteAgreed! It's excellent motivation :) I wish I could have eaten my math lessons as a kid!
DeleteGreat idea :) Everything is so much easier with kids if you involve sweets!! Thanks for linking with Tuesday Tutorials #pintorials
ReplyDeleteYes, you've got that right! Thanks for stopping by :)
DeleteCandy Math is always fun! Thanks for linking up to Share it Saturday! I'm highlighting your post this week!
ReplyDeleteFantastic! Thank you so much! I'll be sure to stop by :)
ReplyDeleteMath is always a really fun subject... when candy is involved! :)
ReplyDeleteThank you for stopping by the Thoughtful Spot Weekly Blog Hop this week. We hope to see you drop by our neck of the woods next week!