LEARN NC

K–12 teaching and learning · from the UNC School of Education

Candy Math

Unit on reviewing Math skills. The unit will take 20 minutes per day for 6 days. A good activity for late spring.

A lesson plan for grade K Mathematics

By Tammy Sharpe

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Learning outcomes

Students will review math skills already taught.

Teacher planning

Time required for lesson

20 minutes

Materials/resources

  • 1 or 2 large bags of candy (M&M’s, Skittles, Jelly Beans)
  • small medicine cup (1-2 oz)
  • clear jar (to hold 10-15 small cups of candy)
  • paper towels or napkins
  • graph paper or chart
  • post-it-notes
  • large index cards
  • glue

Technology resources

None

Pre-activities

Teacher should have already taught objectives listed.

Activities

  1. Estimation: Fill the medicine cup with candy. Allow students to guess how many it takes to fill the jar. Record guesses in the form of a graph. (Have students write name on post-it-note and place the note under hisher predicted number.) After you have filled 4-5 cups and put in the jar, allow students to adjust their predictions. Then continue until jar is full.
  2. Shapes: Use 12 candies to make a circle. Ask students how many on each side? Repeat same procedure for creating a square, triangle, rectangle. Allow students to create a picture using shapes. Students can glue on an index card to display.
  3. Sort: Sort by color. You can order sorting results from least to greatest. Discuss comparisons. Using a prepared graph, students can graph results by least to greatest.
  4. Patterns: Teacher creates a color pattern and students contine that pattern. Students can create their own color pattern.
  5. Addition: Put yellow and red together. How many yellow candies do you have? How many red candies do you have? How many in all? After students have practiced several different color arrangements, allow students time to record. They can choose their favorite arrangements and glue candies to an index card and record math sentence. This would be a good student-created bulletin board.
  6. Subtracting: Sort by colors. How many red candies do you have? Eat one. Now how many? etc. Students can record and create their own math sentence.

Assessment

Teacher observation. Student-made patterns, graphs, and addition and subtraction displays. (Items could be placed in student portfolios.)

Supplemental information

None

Related websites

N/A

Comments

I got some of these ideas from a workshop titled, INTEGRATING PROBLEM SOLVING by Deanna K. Hanlin.

North Carolina Curriculum Alignment

Mathematics (2004)

Kindergarten

  • Goal 1: Number and Operations - The learner will recognize, model, and write whole numbers through 30.
    • Objective 1.01: Develop number sense for whole numbers through 30.
      • Connect model, number word (orally), and number, using a variety of representations.
      • Count objects in a set.
      • Read and write numerals.
      • Compare and order sets and numbers.
      • Use ordinals (1st-10th).
      • Estimate quantities fewer than or equal to 10.
      • Recognize equivalence in sets and numbers 1-10.
  • Goal 3: Geometry - The learner will explore the concepts of geometry.
  • Goal 5: Algebra - The learner will model simple patterns and sort objects.