The best thing about this project: This activity has the students working together in teams to guess how many m&m's are in a 1.69oz bag. They first predict the total number and the individual colors. They then count the actual numbers and find the percent of the whole that each color represents. The class as a whole then combines their results for a class answer. Other activities that they can do with their results is to make a graph showing the different colors and their percent plus other activities. This project is fun because you take an ordinary product and learn math with it. The best fun for the kids in the end is eating it!
The worst thing about this project: The kids may lose concentration because they work with their friends. The class I used this project with was a mixture of third through fifth graders. THey were at different math levels so it was harder for some of them to do than others. I paired up older ones with younger ones to make this go smoother.
What I would change to improve this project (and why): This was a great project and I didn't find anything that would need to be changed. You could substitute Skittles for the M & M's if you wanted to do something different. Another suggestion of the project coordinator was to also do this with a larger size to find the results and see if they are similar to the small bags.
Joined by: Sandy Shetler
Date: Tuesday, March 4, 1997 9:28:00 PM