Sunshine State Standard

MA.A.1.1.3

Materials

M&M's cups paper pencils crayons

What to do

Count out M&M's into cups for the students. I use 8 or 10 but you can use any amount you choose. Before the lesson, review with the students about fractions--what they are and what the numerator and denominator represent. Each student gets a cup of M&M's and a piece of paper. The students pour their M&M's out on their paper. Instruct the students to sort their M&M's by color. Then the students are to draw circles to represent their M&M's and color them accordingly to match their group. The students then count how many different colors they have in their group. The students draw circles at the bottom of their page, one for each color represented in their group. Then they color their circles to match the colors they have. At this point in the lesson, the students are to determine what fraction of their group is represented by each color. Once they have written their fractions, they raise their hands and the teacher comes around to provide immediate feedback. If the teacher prefers, the students can check each others' answers before the teacher checks their answers.

Additional Information

As an extension, we compare (as a group) which color represented the largest fraction of each student's group. I keep a tally chart for each color on the board. I then convert that tally chart into a bar graph on the board. We discuss which color(s) was the most common. I ask a probability question: "If you reached your hand into a bag of M&M's without looking, which color would you most likely pull out?" From my experiences, I've found that blue is the least common color and the brown the most common color. I then explain to the students that certain factors play a role in selecting the amounts of the colors during production, i.e. how the different dyes used to color the M&M's may have different costs and one may cost more than another, one may be easier to mix than another, etc. Correlated to benchmarks: MA.E.1.1.1, MA.E.2.1.1, MA.E.2.2.2

Submitted by

Lisa Stephenson

Highlands County
Sebring, Florida
stephenl@highlands.k12.fl.us