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September 15, 2011

Marshmallow Madness

What better way to do math than to use marshmallows as manipulatives? I was never one to graph the number of dogs Billy has, or how many siblings Susan has, or even how you get to school. Instead, I like using tangible (and preferably 'edible' items). I saw some marshmallows and BINGO!, the lesson was born! The students were shown the marshmallow that they would have to fit into their mouth (it was the large sized one), they had to estimate (our first time estimating this year) how many marshmallows they thought they could fit into their mouth (someone actually said '60'! REALLY??? LOL). We then conducted the activity. As the student placed (or 'shoved' as the case was for a few of them) the marshmallow in their mouth, the rest of the class kept count. When they felt they were done the student raised their hand, then quickly lowered it so that I could get a picture of the 'Marshmallow Moment'. We graphed the results and discussed how our estimations stacked up against the actual number that we were able to fit into our mouths.

I hope you enjoy the pictures! (And the ONLY way they would let me take their pictures was if I promised to be part of the activity and if they could take a picture of me with marshmallows in my mouth. As if anyone would ever doubt that I would want to be part of this fun activity! LOL).