Short weeks before a break are just hard. They seem to drag on like 2 full weeks. Everyone is ready to be on break, the schedule is all sorts of jacked up, and there is some assembly going on every 5 minutes.
AHHH!
I knew 2 things for sure. We couldn't do math stations (without a full week) and we needed to do something fun....with candy.
This is not Thanksgiving related so it's a perfect activity to use any time of year. If you teach multiplication/division concepts and/or you like Skittles this one is for you.
I put my students into groups (I used their math station groups but you obviously group however you like.) The beauty of this activity (and any good activity) is that it can be so easily differentiated by the amount of Skittles you give each group. Not only more or less but also giving some groups a number that will be hard to share "equally" and have them grapple with remainder.
After my students were in groups, I told them their task. They were to make a dozen cupcakes (i.e. 12). In their bag they already had the cupcakes ready (awe, paper cupcakes!? yeah, but REAL SKITTLES!) Each cupcake had to have the SAME amount of Skittles.
I passed out the bags. The bags included a dozen cupcakes and varying amounts of Skittles (36, 48, 72, or some odd numbers like 61 and 17). The bags also had recording sheets for each student. All they needed to bring was a pencil.
Groups got to pick a spot around the room. You may want to tell your students to spread out as they will need lots of room to "work on" their cupcakes.
First, I had students count out their cupcakes (12) and their skittles so they could write in those amounts. Then, I told them to start "baking".
I walked around to facilitate. Students could divide the skittles however they wanted as long as each cupcake had the same amount. They needed to write down how many "leftovers"/remainders they may have had. Then, they would write the division problem and corresponding multiplication problem. For some groups, it was easier to start with multiplication which was fine.
After they filled in one row, they weren't done. They were challenged to put a different equal amount into each cupcake. (for example, a group that had 36 skittles may have started by putting 3 in each cupcake resulting in no leftovers. They could then try 2 or 4 in each cupcake and they would have a remainder which makes the division & multiplication equations a little more challenging).
The most interesting part of this activity was when one group decided to play around with zero. That led to some really good discussions about multiplying or dividing with zero. The concrete representation really made sense to them. I love facilitating during activities like this because we really dive deep and I can easily differentiate.
I hope you try this activity out in your own classroom and let me know how it goes! It worked perfectly for a short week before holiday...which is coming again soon!
Want the activity? Click on any picture above or right HERE.
:) Happy HOLIDAYS!
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