We were inspired by E.J.'s M&Ms Olympic rings activity and wanted to incorporate M&Ms into something else this week. I've always loved counting M&Ms with my students, so my little guy and I had a deliciously good time with this activity.
Materials Needed: M&Ms, white piece of paper (I used cardstock), muffin tin, and M&Ms colored markers (yellow, green, red, orange, blue, brown)
Directions:
1. Start by making your M&Ms Counting page. I drew two M&Ms for each color and wrote the number 2 next to each pair. I also put two of each color in a muffin tin. Having too many M&Ms in a bowl would've overloaded my little guy.
2. Demonstrate one or two times that you want your child to match the M&Ms to the colored circles and count up to 2.
3. Then let them try all by themselves! I needed to prompt my little guy to "count up" as we matched the colors since that was too hard for him. He easily counted when I would point to each M&M to cue him to count up.
4. Take a little break to EAT some M&Ms! I had my little guy tell me what color he wanted and then I helped him count the 2 brown M&Ms in my hand.
5. We did this activity several times because he was so interested in it.
Language Development:
This activity was really motivating because it included an embedded treat, so it was easy to prompt my little guy to use new words and longer phrases because he really wanted those M&Ms! I tried to have him use at least 3 word phrases, like "two green M&Ms" and worked to expand it so that he would say "eat two green M&Ms" or "count two green M&Ms" or "I've got two M&Ms." This activity also reviewed color words and color matching.
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