How to Teach Elementary Math Skills Using Candy
Lesson Plan Ideas and Activities for a Primary Candy Theme Unit
Oct 29, 2008
Use candy as manipulatives or in word problems to teach math skills like shapes, counting, addition, subtraction, multiplication, fractions, estimation, and measuring.
A child's interest in practicing math skills will be captured once candy is involved. Try some candy math lessons to use up leftover holiday candy after Halloween or Valentine's Day or to celebrate National Candy Day (popularly observed on November 4) or National Candy Month in June.
For the trade book activities, have children work each problem using the same or a similar kind of candy. Then use the book problems as models for creating your own.
CAUTION: Check that no students are allergic to candy ingredients such as milk, nuts, or eggs.
How to Use Candy to Teach Colors, Shapes, and Patterns
- Discuss the two-dimensional shapes of the sides of individual candies (for example, a Necco wafer is a circle), and have students draw outlines of each candy on index cards and label their shapes. Discuss the three-dimensional shapes of candies or candy packages (for example, a hard candy is a sphere and a roll of Smarties is a cylinder), and have students glue the candies or packages to index cards and label their shapes. Discuss the difference between 2-D and 3-D shapes, using vocabulary such as points, sides, and edges. Use the sections of a Hershey's chocolate bar to demonstrate how smaller shapes can build other ones.
- Have students glue small candies to paper to make outlines of two-dimensional shapes.
- Have students construct three-dimensional shapes using gumdrops and toothpicks.
- Use Twizzlers: Shapes and Patterns by Jerry Pallotta [Cartwheel, 2002] to model how to create shapes and patterns.
- Use The M&M's Brand Color Pattern Book by Barbara Barbieri McGrath [Charlesbridge, 2002] to model how to make patterns using up to six colors and to teach odd and even numbers and skip counting.
How to Use Candy to Teach Counting, Addition, and Subtraction
- Use The M&M's® Brand Chocolate Candies Counting Book by Barbara Barbieri McGrath [Charlesbridge, 1994] to help students understand the connection between math problems and real-life objects, introducing them to colors, counting, addition, subtraction, forming sets, and making outlines of different kinds of shapes.
- Use The Hershey's Kisses Addition Book by Jerry Pallotta [Cartwheel, 2001], The Hershey's Kisses Subtraction Book by Jerry Pallotta [Cartwheel, 2002], The M&M's Addition Book by Barbara Barbieri McGrath [Charlesbridge, 2004], and The M&M's Subtraction Book by Barbara Barbieri McGrath [Charlesbridge, 2005] to teach the connection between the acts of adding and subtracting and the written numerals and signs (plus, minus, equal) used to record calculations.
- Use Reese's Pieces Count by Fives by Jerry Pallotta [Cartwheel, 2005] to introduce students to skip counting by fives and The M&M's® Count to One Hundred Book by Barbara Barbieri McGrath [Charlesbridge, 2003] to help students count to 100 by ones, twos, fives, and tens.
- Refer to Candy Counting by Lisa McCourt [BridgeWater, 1999] for examples of simple word problems that require students to add and subtract pieces of candy to solve them.
How to Use Candy to Teach Multiplication
- Ignore the confusing information about art and use only the idea of using a Hershey's chocolate bar to teach multiplication from The Hershey's Milk Chocolate Multiplication Book by Jerry Pallotta [Cartwheel, 2002].
How to Use Candy to Teach Graphing and Estimation
- Use More M&M's® Brand Chocolate Candies Math by Barbara Barbieri McGrath [Charlesbridge, 1998] to teach estimation, sorting, and simple graphing, along with factoring, multiplication and division.
How to Use Candy to Teach Fractions and Percentages
- Present isolated examples from The Hershey's Milk Chocolate Bar Fractions Book by Jerry Pallotta [Cartwheel, 1999] to teach fractions.
- Present isolated problems from Twizzlers Percentages Book by Jerry Pallotta [Cartwheel, 2001] to students, ignoring the confusing spaceship narrative.
How to Use Candy to Teach Weights and Measures
- As a focus, use isolated examples from Hershey's Milk Chocolate Weights and Measures by Jerry Pallotta [Cartwheel, 2002] to introduce how to measure lengths using non-standard units and measure weights using scales.
- For practice and assessment, have students measure lengths of classroom objects in candy units, measure the lengths of larger pieces of candy with smaller pieces, and compare candy weights using scales.
For practice and assessment in all cases, have students use candy to solve math problems and then create their own problems to share with a partner to solve.
The copyright of the article How to Teach Elementary Math Skills Using Candy in Primary School Lesson Plans is owned by Renee Carver. Permission to republish How to Teach Elementary Math Skills Using Candy in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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