Posted by Cindy on December 15, 2008
Here’s one of my favorite and super-easy Christmas sweets.
Pretzel and Nut Bark
3 cups semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup thin pretzels broken into small chunks
2/4 cup salted nuts of any kind (I use mixed nuts)
1/3 cup white chocolate chips or almond bark
2 Tablespoons (more or less) of Christmas colored sprinkles (any style)
Line 13×9″ pan with foil so that the foil hangs over the edges. In a large bowl, microwave the semisweet chocolate chips 1-2 minutes. (Stir the chips after one minute, microwave in 30 second increments until chips are melted.) Stir in pretzels and nuts. Spread in pan.
In a smaller bowl, microwave the white chocolate chips or almond bark for 1 minute or until melted. Place melted chocolate in a plastic ziptop baggie. Snip the corner and squeeze the chocolate over the bark in the pan. Lightly cover with sprinkles. Chill for about 1 hour (until firm).
Lift the bark out by the foil, then peel the foil away. Break the bark into pieces. Keep chilled until ready to eat.
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! 
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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.
After making the concrete graphs, my children jotted the information and used centimeter grid paper to design their own graphs.
Happy graphing!
Posted by Cindy on October 15, 2007
Talk about a fun week of math learning! Here are a couple of the activities my children did during our week of m&m math fun. Overall, we covered estimation, sorting, counting, adding, word problems, pictographs, bar graphs, comparison graphs, pie graphs, graphs made in a spreadsheet program, fractions, fair shares (division), mean/median/mode, decimals and percentages. I’d say that was enough math to rival any textbook curriculum for a week!
http://www.col-ed.org/cur/math/math26.txt
graphing and probability
http://score.kings.k12.ca.us/lessons/mandm.html
estimating, sorting, counting, graphing, plotting, fractions, percentage, and calculating mean, median, mode
http://faculty.roosevelt.edu/donovan/documents/M%20&%20M%20Math%20Intermediate_files/M%20&%20M%20Math%20Intermediate.htm
predicting, classifying, graphing, percentages
http://ofcn.org/cyber.serv/academy/ace/math/cecmath/cecmath013.html
averages with m&m cookies
http://www.lessonplanspage.com/MathEstimationClassification.htm
easy estimation and classification
http://www.atozteacherstuff.com/pdf.htm?m&mschart.pdf
printable m&m graph
http://www.create.cett.msstate.edu/create/classroom/lplan_view.asp?articleID=98
collect, graph, record and interpret data to create a bar graph on the computer
http://www.learnnc.org/lessons/KarenWalker5232002614
estimate, sort, graph and add with printable charts near the bottom
http://www.beaconlearningcenter.com/Lessons/2622.htm
fractions, decimals and percentage
http://www.mms.com/us/fungames/
official m&m website
http://www.ciese.org/math/activities/candycircles/index.html
mean, median and mode
http://42explore.com/choclat.htm
many, many chocolate related activities and links
