Have each child bring in one or two large bags of m&m's and munch your way through June. These fun activities are a great way to review and keep interest high as the year end approaches. Because of peanut allergies stay away from peanut m&m's unless you're sure no one is allergic. Keep in mind that even in plain, regular m&m's there can be minute traces of peanut.

Language Arts

Sing the song below to the tune of "On Top of Old Smokey" and then write a class story about what happened next.

On top of my ice cream buried in fudge,

I lost my poor m&m when somebody nudged-

It rolled down the table, bounced off a chair,

Then my m&m fell in the dog's hair.

What happened next?

Story prompts: How are m&m's made? Would you like to eat m&m's if they were chicken/broccoli flavored? What if eating m&m's gave you special powers? What special ability might you gain for eating a red one vs. a brown one?

If students are familiar with the characters, like Miss Green, from the commercials thay can write their own story about them and illustrate it with m&m figures they draw.

For a delicious twist on bingo, create bingo cards for the sight words or letters you want to review. Students put an m&m on each place of their card. When you call out that word or letter they get to eat the m&m if they have that letter or word.

Using the Building Blocks approach create a predictable chart about their favorite color based on the prompt "I like red m&m's."

Another song to sing and pocket chart activity is based on the Barney song-

I like to eat, eat, eat, red m&m's.

I like to eat, eat, eat, blue m&m's.

I like to reat reat reat, red m&m's.

I like to beat , beat, beat blue m&m's.

I like to geat, geat, geat green m&m's.

I like to yeat, yeat, yeat, yellow m&m's.

Math

Use m&m's to review many skills you covered throughout the year from counting, graphing, and estimating to adding, subtracting and dividing.

At snack time you can have each child sit with a partner and give them a small pile of m&m's to divide so that they are sharing equally. This is good to do at any snack time with small crackers or mini cookies. You can also have the students make a pattern with their m&m's before they eat them.

You can have each child trace their hand on a piece of paper. Then they can use m&m's to measure the perimeter and area of their hand. They can also use m&m's to measure their pencil or a crayon.

Children can practice sorting with a pile of m&m's and an egg carton. Each child can also sort by colors and then graph. It is easy to draw a grid for them for the graphing. You can write the color words on the bottom and it gives them practice in reading their color words. You can also graph the class favorite. Do they like frozen or regular m&m's. You can take a survey of how the class eats their m&m's. Do they bite them or let them melt in their mouth? Then you can graph the survey results.

Have the students practice estimating with m&m's in three different assorted containers such as a pill bottle, baby food jar, and cup. Give students a chance to revise their estimates after you reveal the count of the first container.

To practice adding give the students a piece of paper with three circles on it with a plus sign and equals sign in the appropriate places. Then you can give them problems orally, on a piece of paper or have them roll two dice. To practice subtracting give them a paper with a house drawn on it. Tell them this is where the m&m characters live. Give them problems such as "There are 7 m&m's at home and two go out to make their next commercial-how many are left at home?" Give them a little cup to put their m&m's in when they leave home.

Make class books that reinforce counting to 100 with the text below. This will take two-three days to assemble. Students can illustrate their pages by drawing circles with markers, gluing hole puncher holes or using the eraser tip of a pencil dipped in paint.

I have 10 m&m's. Yum!

I have 20 m&m's. Yum!

I have 30 m&m's. Yum!

I have 40 m&m's. Yum!

I have 50 m&m's. Yum!

I have 60 m&m's. Yum!

I have 70 m&m's. Yum!

I have 80 m&m's. Yum!

I have 90 m&m's. Yum!

I ate 100 m&m's. Groan!

Did you know that from 1941-1950 violet was part of the original blend of m&m candies?

Did you know that m&m's rocketed into space on the space shuttle in 1982?

Did you know that the "M" was originally printed in black before it was changed to white in 1954?

For more interesting information call the Mars company at 1-800-222-0293 and ask for their teacher's kit. This comes with reproducible worksheets for assorted math activities, stickers and coupons for candy. You can also check them out online at the "M&M's" Studios where you can read the bios of each individual m&m character, send e cards and play games. You can also use their colorworks service to special order m&m's in unique colors like gold and teal.This makes a cool end of the year gift.

Graphics by Creative Insanity