Have you ever been taken your special little guy or girl to a ball park, airport, bus station, sale barn, and an expected short wait has stretched to an eternity? Everyone has become bored, wiggly and just plain tired. M&Ms can become a source of learning and entertainment.
Here are super simple M&M activities to put into your arsenal of activities to help pass the time!
All you need is:
- Paper plate – Any clean space or a piece of paper will do; the edge of the plate just contains them better.
- M&Ms – You can use any colorful manipulatives such as Skittles, Fruit Loops, buttons, beads, and etc for the activities below. I understand not everyone wants to use candy or edibles
- Pen or pencil for older children
Count with them, encouraging one-to-one correspondence. (Each M&M gets one count)
Sort them by color.
Then identify colors by naming them. If your child isn’t quite ready to name colors you can have them point to them: “Show me the red ones.”
Make a bar graph with them, then discuss which has the most and least.
“Which one has two?” ”Which has the most?” “Which lines have the same amount?”
If your child isn’t quite ready for a bar graph, make a couple of lines and talk about the longest, shortest, tallest…
Make a pattern:
Do simple simple addition and subtraction. “If we have three M&Ms and we take one away, how many are left?” “If we have three M&Ms and we add one, how many do we have?”
For older kids, you might try adding/subtracting using the symbols:
Play Tic-Tac-Toe
Make some shapes…
…and other colorful, fun designs.
Hope you all have a fun and happy time waiting together!
This post has be linked to:
Nurture Store’s Play Academy - Check out the many fun ideas at this Linky!
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Great idea for on the go entertainment!
Hi Jackie, Thanks for stopping by! I left a link suggestion on your Wordless Wednesday post. Hope it is helpful. Enjoyed your blog.
Kristi
Oh fun easy idea. As an answer to sucking bubbles up the straw. It didn’t seem to be a problem. I blew the straw first to show my son and he was too busy making bubbles I guess. Thanks for stopping by. I am going to take a look around your site.
Glad you like it. Thanks for the reply and for reading! Kristi
AND there’s no cleanup when the activity is over! LOL
Hi Lisa, You are so right!It was 100 degrees when I wrote this post, and I thought… if we try this outside now we would have little brown puddles to lick off of the plate. lol
What a great idea! Tons of application and delicious too!
I agree Alana, it was a very tasty clean up
great idea! could really be a life saver too. Thanks so much for sharing on Craft Schooling Sunday!
Hi Sara, My pleasure…I enjoyed looking through your blog and checking out all of the activities.
We are starting our candy theme this week over at http://www.worldgoneblue.blogspot.com I will definitly use this idea! Very cute and you are right the plate will help coantain for my little 2 year old
So glad it was helpful! Thanks so much for stopping by. Kristi
GREAT ideas and oh so easy!!! Perfect for this momma
Thanks for linking up to “Strut Your Stuff Sunday” on our blog!! We appreciate it!
Kristine
http://www.jandmseyecandy.blogspot.com
P.S. We also host a linky party “Help a Momma Out” every Tuesday. This would be a perfect link up! Please feel free to add it
We appreciate it! Thanks again for sharing!
Kristine
http://www.jandmseyecandy.blogspot.com
Thanks for visiting and for the info about the linky on Tuesday. I’ll plan to be there!
Perfect tool for sorting and graphing and doing math period! Love it.
I would love for you to hop over and link this up to my mommy solution meme.
http://www.crystalandcomp.com/2011/07/the-mommy-club-share-your-resources-and-solutions-2/
Thanks for the invitation, I’m linked up! Cute blog and I like the variety on your meme.
They are also so much fun to eat! What great activities! Thank you for linking up with us on The Sunday Showcase
Fantastic, we will try this!
We made something similar with shells.
You can check it here:
http://csupamoka2.blogspot.com/2011/09/kagylo-szamtan.html
I love the shell activity. Thanks for sharing the link.
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