Living Math – Graphs Galore

Posted by Cindy on November 10, 2008

October/November = lots of falling leaves and lots of candy. What better to do with both of those things? Math, of course! )

Whether you have extra M&M’s, Skittles, Smarties, Runts, or just a big bunch of assorted candy bars, take a few minutes to turn those sweets into more than cavities. Even little bitty ones can sort candy, place the pieces on a blank grid, then color a bar graph. As the kiddos get bigger, all the more fun they can have graphing their candy. Here’s a post from last year about how we used M&M’s to do all sorts of graphs. This year, we did some candy graphing, but not quite as in depth as last year.

And don’t forget all those autumn leaves! Make a nature walk even more productive by collecting a sack of leaves to sort and graph.

Literal or concrete graphs are not only fun, but help younger ones understand better what a graph on paper represents.